Conferences and Meetings
RU's School of Law holds regular academic meetings on issues related to the field of law. In 2008- 2009, the School organised more than a dozen events which spanned subjects involving various legal fields.
The School of Law places an emphasis on offering academic meetings which cover those legal issues that are most prominent at any given time. Lögrétta, the law students' organisation, also holds regular debate meetings.
Conference: The Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities - from Social Policy to Equal Rights: 2007
The aim of the Conference was to examine these important legal developments at the global and European level and their transposition into domestic law. Underlying is the realisation that they are related to some of the key themes of the human rights law of the 21st century. These developments bear witness to several paradigmatic shifts, for example we can identify a transition from social policy to legal rights, from procedural administrative law to substantive human rights law, from “soft law” to “hard law”, from formal equality to substantive and multidimensional equality, and from rehabilitation and assimilation to dignity and diversity. Recent legislative developments also place the idea that all human rights are indivisible and interdependent in sharp focus and call for a critical re-evaluation of the traditional dichotomy between the categories of civil and political rights on one hand and economic, social and cultural rights on the other. Closely related is the question of the justiciability of the different rights claims which is highlighted by all the recent developments mentioned.
The International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 13 December 2006. As of early June 2007 it has been signed by 97 parties, including the European Community. At the regional level, the protection of the European equality directives was in 2000 extended beyond gender equality to include, inter alia, disability and Protocol 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights extends the sphere of protection against discrimination under the Convention. Also, under the European Social Charter, the rights of persons with disabilities are increasingly conceptualised as a non-discrimination issue. It seems clear that the dawn of the 21st century has witnessed many important legal developments relevant to disability rights.
The conference was part of the Icelandic programme during the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All. The Conference audience included academics, postgraduate students and professionals from various fields of law, sociology, political science and disability studies
