Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Borgwardt to Speak on "The Nuremberg Idea"

On Monday, February 8, 2016, from 4:00pm - 5:30pm, Elizabeth Borgwardt, Washington University in St Louis, will speak on The Nuremberg Idea: Crimes against Humanity in History, Law & Politics, in the 6th Floor Boardroom of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC:
“The Nuremberg Idea” offers a historically-informed answer to one of the key social theory questions of our time: How did “human rights” become a concept that even the most heinous regimes feel they need to buy into? In tackling this question through the vector of the term “crimes against humanity,” this history offers a new transdisciplinary analysis of how human rights norms are formed, transmitted, and sustained, both domestically and at the supra-national level. Nuremberg-infused ideas about accountability and sovereignty have unfolded throughout the postwar era, culminating in the United Nations’ official adoption of the doctrine of “the Responsibility to Protect” in 2005.