Save the Date: Judge Rosemary Barkett Speaks on Bringing Human Rights Home

The 2015 James Madison Lecture at NYU Law will be presented by the Honorable Rosemary Barkett, Judge Iran – United States Claims Tribunal, The Hague, former United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.  Her lecture is titled “Bringing Human Rights Home? I Thought They Were Already Here.”  The lecture will be held on October 22 at 6 p.m.  More details are available here.

According to the NYU Law website, the Madison Lectures are the most important lecture series at the NYU School of Law. Begun in 1960, the lectures are designed to enhance the appreciation of civil liberty and strengthen the sense of national purpose.  It is certainly a measure of progress that “human rights” is the topic of this year’s lecture.

Past NYU lectures on “human rights at home” have had tremendous reach.  A particular example is the Brennan Lecture on State Courts and Social Justice delivered by Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall in 2004, titled “‘Wise Parents do not Hesitate to Learn from their Children’: Interpreting State Constitutions in the Age of Global Jurisprudence.” 

Like Chief Justice Marshall’s Brennan Lecture, Judge Barkett’s Madison lecture will be published and will, we anticipate, continue to deepen the national conversation on human rights in the U.S.