Budapest, Hungary, 19-25 July 2015

The Tom Lantos Institute (TLI) and the National University of Public Service (NUPS) in cooperation with the Middlesex University London (MU) and with the support of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade are organising their third international Summer School on Minority Rights with a special focus on the impact of boundary politics on identity and inequality.

The Summer School will host 30 participants from all over the world and offers a forum to discuss relevant issues related to minorities with leading experts and practitioners in the field of international human rights law, political science, sociology, and history. Participants will study the multiple impacts of boundary changes on identity and equality in the interwar period and today. Lectures and interactive workshops will cover the following topics: a critical assessment of the geopolitical perspective on boundary changes in Europe; the impact of the peace treaties on national, ethnic, linguistic and religious identities in Europe; boundary changes and conflict resolution from a normative perspective (focus on Kurdistan and Kosovo); the successful management of border communities in Europe; current territorial debates in Europe (Scotland, Catalonia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Crimea); the problem solving capacity of autonomies in Central and Eastern Europe; the protection of minorities in the Middle East; international and transnational approaches to minority protection; the Roma in Europe; and, finally, identity politics and equality.

The Summer School aims to:

Understand and critically assess the relevant international law and related practice on ethnic conflict resolution;
Present and review existing practice on the management of border communities in different regions of Europe;
Understand and discuss the effectiveness of the international minority protection regime with a particular focus on identity politics and equality.
This Summer School is envisaged as a space for meeting and consulting with authoritative academics, practitioners, public servants and decision-makers, providing participants the opportunity to share their experiences and present their research projects for discussion.

Lecturers include:

Anna-Mária Bíró, Director of the Tom Lantos Institute
Joshua Castellino, Dean of the School of Law, Middlesex University, London
Kathleen Cavanaugh, Lecturer, Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway
Eve Hepburn, Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh
Jennifer Jackson Preece, Associate Professor, London School of Economics
Angéla Kóczé, Visiting Assistant Professor, Wake Forest University
Tove Malloy, Director of the European Centre for Minority Issues, Flensburg
Brendan O’Leary, Lauder Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Alexander Osipov, Senior Research Associate, European Centre for Minority Issues, Flensburg
Francesco Palermo, Director of the Institute for Studies on Federalism and Regionalism, European Academy, Bolzano/Bolzen
Dimitrina Petrova, Executive Director of the Equal Rights Trust, London
András Rácz, Senior Research Fellow, Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki
Balázs Vizi, Associate Professor, National University of Public Service, Budapest.
The views expressed by the speakers do not necessarily reflect the views of the Tom Lantos Institute.

You can find the bios of summer school lecturers and their lecture topics in the PDF below.