UNL conference to explore human rights, human security Nov. 1-2

            Human rights and human security will be the focus of an upcoming symposium that will bring scholars from around the country to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

            UNL's Political Science Department will host the G.E. Hendricks Symposium Nov. 1-2 and will focus on the theme "Human Rights and Human Security in Conversation." All events are free and open to the public.

            The symposium will gather scholars from across the country and across disciplines for public discussions and debates about topics including the implications of divorcing rights from security, conceptualizing and measuring human security, and human security as a phenomenon in international politics.

            International human rights expert Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, Canada research chair in international human rights at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, will present the symposium's keynote address. Her talk, "The Politics of Food in North Korea," will begin at 7 p.m. Nov. 1 in the Nebraska Union auditorium, 14th and R streets.

            UNL's Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs program and the College of Arts and Sciences co-sponsor the symposium. It is made possible through the University of Nebraska's Hendricks Fund. Alumnus and attorney G.E. Hendricks established it in 1976 to support the exploration of current controversial political questions in a nonpartisan, unbiased manner. Hendricks believed that a more intelligent examination and consideration of political questions would lead to better government.

            The UNL Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs program's mission is to examine issues related to human rights from an international and interdisciplinary perspective in the classroom and within its research projects as well as to bring these discussions to the wider community. To learn more about it, visit http://humanrights.unl.edu.

Writer: Jean Ortiz Jones, University Communications, 402-472-8320