2023 Lillich Lecture Presented by NYU Professor

On Monday, April 17, FSU's Journal of Transnational Law & Policy presented their annual Lillich Lecture, featuring Gráinne de Búrca, the Florence Ellinwood Allen professor of law at New York University, where she also serves as director of the Hauser Global Law School and co-director of the Jean Monnet Center. In her lecture, “Illiberal Human Rights?,” de Búrca argued that in recent years, there have been significant new challenges to the postwar international system of human rights by coalitions of illiberal actors, including right-wing populist, religious, and political leaders. According to de Búrca, rather than contesting the language and institutions of human rights, these groups appropriate human rights language, concepts, and institutions, attempting to reshape the corpus of human rights in a more conservative fashion. De Búrca argued that while human rights principles should be open to reinterpretation and change, they should always be, at their core, dignity enhancing, recognizing of human equality, universalist in orientation, welfare promoting, and accepting of accountability. De Búrca discussed several strategies to resist the illiberal drift, including mobilizing people, activists, and governments whose approaches align with this conception of human rights.

Published April 28, 2023