Workshop on the Legitimate Aims in Human Rights Law held at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights

On 13 November 2024, the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights convened a workshop focused on examining how legitimate aims, understood as rationales for restricting human rights, are defined and reviewed in international human rights law.

This event, convened by the Institute’s head of research Professor Başak Çalı together with Joseph Finnerty from the Hertie School, brought together academics and graduate students whose research span the African, European and Inter-American human rights systems, the European Union, UN Human Rights treaties and comparative constitutional law. Speakers and participants explored the differences in the articulation of legitimate aims across human rights treaties, standards of review employed to assess the veracity of legitimate put forward by governments and what constitutes illegitimate aims or constitute bad faith employment of legitimate aims in human rights law and constitutional law.

Delving into topics ranging from the employment of child protection as a legitimate aim when restricting LGBTQI plus rights by states before international courts and border control in the context of EU border management to the identification of illegitimate aims in comparative constitutional law and  ulterior purpose provisions in the European and Inter-American human rights conventions, the workshop aimed to illuminate comparative pathways for understanding whether, why and how purpose review matters in human rights law.

The full list of speakers and paper titles are available via this link.