EARC Conference 2022 – Localising human rights
Venue: Signature Room
Launched in 2020, Human Rights Local is a project of the Human Rights Centre of the University of Essex that aims to make human rights locally relevant. It challenges the notion that international human rights laws and principles are somehow alien to people’s daily lives.
Using international law as a reference point, campaigners and community groups in the UK and internationally are vernacularising human rights; in other words, they are building on lived experience to acknowledge local narratives while remaining loyal to the global pillars human rights are built upon. The session will provide an opportunity to present the ongoing work to make human rights locally relevant in and near Colchester, and will present the findings of a new report on Poverty and Social Rights in Essex.
Case study: How to approach to best practice in addressing emergency homelessness assistance
The right to housing and shelter is a basic human right. Given limited provision of specialist housing advice in the region and limited collaboration, how can we identify issues and solve them and ensure rights and responsibilities known about?
One issue is the provision of s188 emergency accommodation at crisis point and the idea for a project between Essex law clinic and beacon house in Colchester to improve provision in this area, drawing lessons and learning from other practitioners and local authorities to improve assistance to street homeless and sofa surfing homeless/homeless at home.
Davies works across Suffolk and Essex and sees an opportunity to create a regional community of practice in regard to the legal rights of homeless people for assistance and helping local authorities with their duties. There are both practical and policy implications for this session but it is hoped it would be the start of an ongoing network for improving provision of support to the homeless and access to legal support.
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Andrew is the Director of the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. He has extensive multi-disciplinary teaching experience and interests, spanning the theory and practice of human rights. His research focuses upon the normative, political and cultural challenges to human rights.
He is particularly interested in the contributions which radical philosophies and politics can make to defending human rights against multiple challenges. He has taught and lectured upon human rights across the world; including, Central Asia, East Asia, Europe, South East Asia and North and South America.
He is currently the Eastern Arc Champion for Human Rights, Equality and Conflict at Essex.
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Lyle Barker is a Research Officer at the University of Essex Human Rights Centre and School of Law, providing human rights research under the project Human Rights Local. He is a former student of the LL.M. in International Human Rights Law programme (2020-2021) at the University of Essex, where he was also a member of the Human Rights Centre Clinic.
Lyle is also the Human Rights Officer at Just Fair, leading on its next phase of social rights movement building and community work. Lyle is the co-author of Poverty and Social Rights in Essex (University of Essex Human Rights Centre and School of Law 2022).
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Dr Koldo Casla is Lecturer in Law and the Director of the Human Rights Centre Clinic of the University of Essex. At Essex, he also leads the projects Human Rights Local. Before joining Essex, Casla was Research Associate at the Institute of Health & Society of Newcastle University, where he co-drafted the first Bill on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the UK (2017-19), Policy Director of the social rights NGO Just Fair (2016-19), and author of four Amnesty International reports on the rights to health, education and housing in Spain (2013-19).
Casla is the author of Politics of International Human Rights Law Promotion in Western Europe: Order versus Justice (Routledge 2019) and Spain and Its Achilles’ Heels: The Strong Foundations of a Country’s Weaknesses (Rowman & Littlefield 2021), and the co-editor of Social Rights and the Constitutional Moment: Learning from Chile and International Experiences (Hart 2022).
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Lucy Davies is a lecturer in law and the housing law supervisor at the Essex Law Clinic based in the School of Law at the University of Essex. She also works as a caseworker in the housing legal aid team at Suffolk Law Centre providing legal assistance and representation across Suffolk and North Essex in housing possession, unlawful eviction, poor housing conditions and homelessness cases and runs the Housing Possession Court Duty scheme at Bury St Edmunds County Court.
She has previously worked for Shelter and Citizens Advice and has a practical approach to resolving housing issues grounded in community liaison supported by legal aid where possible and seeking creative solutions to address support to those in legal aid deserts.
Through the Law Clinic, Lucy has worked in collaboration with Beacon House in Colchester since 2018 supporting those who are homelessness or in precarious housing access legal advice across family and housing law and specialising in homelessness challenges to local authorities.
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Benjamin is a third year LLB Law student and is the current Student Director at Essex Law Clinic. He has completed approximately 40 client-facing cases with the Clinic since joining and engaged in numerous community-facing projects including extensive work with Beacon House, a local homelessness support charity.
Benjamin has also volunteered with Advocate, formerly known as the Bar Pro-Bono Unit, focusing on Housing, Family and Special Educational Needs (SEN) casework and with Freedom Law Clinic working on complex criminal appeal cases to the Criminal Case Review Commission.
Benjamin has been included on the Dean’s List for Excellence for his first two years’ academic grades, having returned to education following a career in Retail Management and HR. He was inspired to pursue a career in Law to effect change following the birth of his two young children, who remain his greatest achievement to date.
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Michelle Wilkinson is an advanced nurse practitioner with over two decades of nursing and primary care experience at a nurse led clinic within a Beacon house in Colchester, UK.
As a Queen’s nurse she has spent her career working with those who most marginalized in the community, striving to highlight health inequalities within the homeless population and challenging practice to innovate to accommodate their complex needs. Including the implementation of a homeless cancer screening hub and the launch of a digital health hub within the past 2 years.
Over the years, she has hosted multiple events/strategic partners to discuss such topics as education pathways for inclusion nursing, recruitment needs within the nursing community, and much more. And was recently awarded the High Sheriff Award for work within the homeless population during the recent pandemic.
It’s truly her passion to drive change and innovation within the nursing community, particularly when it comes to creating equality in healthcare for the homeless.