Human Rights and the Cost of Living Crisis

The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) is delighted to invite you to our upcoming event on ‘Human Rights and the Cost of Living Crisis.’ This event will take place from 16:00 – 18:00 UK time (GMT) online via Microsoft Teams on Wednesday, 2 November 2022.

As the cost of food, energy and other essential goods continues to rise, and real disposable incomes fall, we are estimated to witness the greatest shift in living standards in recent memory. This is a global crisis that will have the most severe impact on those already living in poverty. The United Nations Development Programme estimates that since 2021, 71 million people have already been pushed into poverty as a consequence of the increasing cost of living.

In bringing together a range of experts working on issues related to poverty, economic policy and human rights, this event will explore key questions, including:

• What are the human rights impacts of the cost of living crisis?
• How can human rights be used to inform and (re)calibrate national and international responses to the cost of living crisis?
• How can human rights standards, mechanisms and advocacy strategies be used to challenge the human rights harms caused by the crisis?

The presentations will be followed by a Q&A/discussion with event participants. Speakers will include:

• Meghna Abraham – Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights
• Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona – Executive Director of The Global Initiative for Economic and Social Rights / UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (2008-2014)
• Aoife Nolan – Vice-President of the Council of Europe European Committee of Social Rights / School of Law, University of Nottingham
• Thamil Ananthavinayagan – School of Law, University of Nottingham

Speaker Biographies:

Meghna Abraham – Executive Director of the Center for Economic and Social Rights

Meghna is an international human rights lawyer and expert on economic, social, and cultural rights, with a track-record of enabling various organisations to develop new and innovative areas of research and investigations, advocacy, which have resulted in impactful national, regional, and global campaigns. Meghna has spent over two decades working with communities challenging the impact of unjust economic policies across a wide array of issues. She worked at Amnesty International for over a decade, including as the Director of Global Issues and Head of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Meghna is a qualified Indian lawyer who holds a BA LLB (Hons) degree from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore, and BCL and MPhil in Law degrees from the University of Oxford, where she was a Radhakrishnan Chevening Scholar.

Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona – Executive Director of The Global Initiative for Economic and Social Rights / UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights (2008-2014)

Magdalena is a human rights lawyer with vast experience in economic, social and cultural rights. In her 20-year career, Magdalena has focused on the intersection of poverty, development and human rights and has bridged research and policy formulation. She has worked as a researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, as a staff attorney at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as the Co-Director of the Department of International Law and Human Rights of the United Nations-mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica and as a Research Director at the International Council on Human Rights Policy, in Geneva. More recently, she was a Senior Research Fellow at the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). From 2008 to 2014, Magdalena was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Magdalena holds a Ph.D. in International Law from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, an LL.M in human rights law from the University of Essex, and a post graduate diploma on comparative constitutional law from the Universidad Católica de Chile.

Aoife Nolan – Vice-President of the Council of Europe European Committee of Social Rights / School of Law, University of Nottingham

Aoife’s professional experience in human rights and constitutional law straddles the legal, policy, practitioner and academic fields. She is Vice-President of the Council of Europe’s European Committee of Social Rights and has acted as an expert advisor to a wide range of international and national organisations and bodies working on human rights issues, including numerous UN Special Procedures, UN treaty bodies, the Council of Europe, multiple NHRIs and NGOs. She has held visiting positions at academic institutions in Europe, Africa, the US and Australia. She is an Academic Expert member at Doughty Street Chambers where she co-leads the Children’s Rights Group. She has published extensively in the areas of human rights and constitutional law, particularly in relation to children’s rights and economic and social rights.

Thamil Ananthavinayagan – School of Law, University of Nottingham

Dr. Thamil Venthan Ananthavinayagan, LLM. (Maastricht University), PhD (NUI Galway) is a Teaching Associate at University of Nottingham, UK since February 2021. Before joining University of Nottingham, he worked as a Fellow and research assistant to the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway, Ireland from 2013-2017 and worked as Lecturer in International Law at Griffith College Dublin from 2017-2020. His doctoral research focused on the engagement of Sri Lanka with the United Nations human rights machinery, published as a book in 2019. He has presented papers and delivered guest lectures at international organisations and universities in, inter alia, Braga, Dublin, Edinburgh, Galway, Geneva, London, New Delhi, Padova, Seattle, Seoul, Singapore, Kathmandu. He has a research interest in (post)-colonial studies, racism/fascism in international law, CRT, TWAIL and has widely published in these areas.