Presentation

 
The 2015 Summer Course on Human Rights and Security: Justifying Exceptions will be held in Palermo (Italy) between 15th and 20th June 2015 and  is organized by the University of Palermo as part of the PhD Program on Human Rights, together with the renowned research centre in Philosophy of Law the European Academy of Legal Theory in Bruxelles, and in collaboration with the Ecole Doctorale de Sciences Juridiques et Politiques of the University of Paris Nanterre.
 
This years topic regards the concept of securitization. The concept indicates a discursive process in which an agent claims the need to adopt exceptional measures which bring about considerable violations of otherwise binding rules, in order to protect a given value from a serious and extraordinary threat. The aim of such process is ultimately to persuade a specific audience to accept those measures and the consequent violations. One of the main advantages of this conceptualization is that it emphasizes the fact that every securitization process is, above all, an argumentative operation (being essentially an invocation of reasons for justifying violations of otherwise binding norms), all the while representing in a simple manner its essential elements namely the agent, the “securitized” value, the exceptional measures, the violated rules, the grave and extraordinary threat and the audience.
Securitization has a double relationship with human rights: Violated rules typically include norms posited for the protection of fundamental rights (the most notable case being that of “the state of exception” whose declaration represents a securitization move par excellence); human rights are, on the other hand, themselves increasingly becoming the securitized values (the most obvious example here is that of humanitarian interventions in cases of gross violations of human rights).

The 2015 Summer Course aims at scrutinizing different aspects of securitization moves in their double relationship with human rights and will discuss topics such as: Law, Security & Human Rights, The Genealogy of Security, Human Rights, Security & the International Legal Order, Emergencies & Human Rights, Human Security and Right to Security & Responsibility to Protect.

Programme

Inscription information
Application deadline is 25th May 2015. Detailed information on how to apply will be available on the PhD Program’s web page (http://goo.gl/ytseGb) from the end of March 2015 onwards.

Enrolment & Registration fee
Maximum 30 applicants will be accepted.
The registration fee is 250,00 €. The fee includes enrollment in the course, reading material, the final certificate, and insurance cover.
Students of the II. Level Masters in Global Rule of Law and Constitutional Democracy (University of Genoa) and the Máster en Argumentación Jurídica (University of Alicante) can benefit from a discounted rate of € 175,00. Graduates of the Colombian universities, which participate in the cultural and scientific cooperation started on June 24th 2013 with the Italian embassy to Bogotá, are exempted from the registration fees.

Certificate
Students who will attend at least 90% of the seminar hours will receive a certificate (6 ECTS).

Housing & meals
Participants not residing in Palermo can rent a room at the ERSU Palermo (Ente Regionale per il Diritto allo Studio Universitario) at convenient rates. All participants will have access to University canteens.

Venue
The Course will be held at the University of Palermo, Department of Legal Sciences, Society and Sport (Piazza Bologni 8, 90134 Palermo, Italy).

Contacts
For further information, please contact Mr Matija Žgur (e-mail: matija.zgur@unipa.it; matija.zgur@gmail.com; for matters regarding the Course) or the Summer Course Secretary Mr Rosario Castiglione (e-mail: rosario.castiglione@unipa.it; for all organizational matters).