Constitutional fix-it man lecturing in Auckland October 2, 2007

The lectures will analyse problems and dilemmas of the political and social organisation of multi-ethnic states and the solutions that have been proposed or adopted to deal with them. The great attention given to ethnicity in politics and academy results from civil wars and the horrendous violence that have been unleashed in its name. How to prevent or deal with that conflict and violence is a key issue of contemporary times. The co-existence of diverse cultures, religious, linguistic and ethnic communities with multiple and sometimes competing identities raise profound moral, philosophical and practical issues. These issues also impinge on the international community and pose difficult questions on the role of international rules and institutions in the national regulation and accommodation of diversity.

This lecture will deal with theoretical perspectives on ethnicity, and explore its different manifestations and relationship with nationalism. It will seek to explain the politicisation of ethnicity, and trace the development of concepts and norms that have facilitated "identity" politics. Finally, it will examine the implications of the rise of politicised ethnicity for constitutional theory, international law, democracy, and legal orders.

Thursday 4 October: The challenge of ethnicity to human rights.
This lecture will examine relationships between ethnicity and human rights, and will describe how ethnicity both draws on and threatens the values and principles of human rights. It will explore the implications of the conflict between universalism and diversity of cultures. Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between the individual, community and the state, and the gradual shift in the balance between individual and group rights. It will also discuss the prevalence of humanitarian intervention and the criminalisation of conduct amounting to oppression of ethnic communities and other gross violations of human rights.

Monday 8 October: Designing the state in multi-ethnic states.
This lecture will look at the ways in which the state is being re-designed to respond to the imperative of ethnicity, and the competing theories that underline these efforts. It will examine critically different conceptions and modes of state organisation, such as the liberal, hegemonic and consociational. The lecture will focus on the new conceptions of differentiated citizenship, the rise of collective rights, adaptations of electoral systems, power sharing, devolution of powers through various forms of autonomy, affirmative action, and devices to overcome oppressions and bitterness of the past in the search for national reconciliation.

Biography:
Dr Yash Ghai, CBE, MA, DCL (Oxon), LLM (Harvard), a renowned scholar in constitutional law, will deliver the Sir Douglas Robb Lectures in 2007. He served as the Sir YK Pao Professor for 16 years at Hong Kong University from 1989, retiring at the end of 2005. He is now an Honorary Professor there as also at the University of Cape Town. Previously he taught at Dar es Salaam and Warwick. He has now returned to live in the country of his birth, Kenya.

His interests include both human rights and ethnic conflicts. He has published extensively in this area, as well as on the law in many developing countries, especially in Africa and the Pacific, and on the constitutional law of Hong Kong and China.

Dr Ghai has advised many governments and other bodies on constitutional developments. These include troubled nations such as Fiji, Samoa, Bougainville, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Kenya where ethnicity has been a major issue.

Currently he heads the Constitution Advisory Support Unit of the United Nations Development Programme in Nepal to assist in the peace and constitution-making process. He is also a Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Cambodia on human rights.

He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 2005. The fellowship is the highest honour that the Academy can confer for distinction and achievement in the humanities and social sciences.

Official Website: http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/about/events/2007/10/lectures/robb.cfm