A festschrift is published to honour Professor Surya Subedi

It is a rare and singular honour for an academic to have a festschrift published to celebrate their outstanding career.

A collection of writings published in honour of Professor Surya P. Subedi OBE, KC was launched at an event recently at the Manchester International Law Centre  (University of Manchester). The festschrift, The Incoherence of Human Rights in International Law, recognises Professor Subedi’s "immeasurable lifetime achievement and contribution to international law and human rights scholarship and practice."

It was edited by Dr Louisa Ashley and Dr Nicolette Butler with chapters contributed by staff and alumni of the School of Law, and Professor Subedi’s colleagues at various other universities around the globe. The book was published by Routledge in London and New York and was dedicated to Professor Subedi.

Delivering his keynote speech on ‘A cross-cultural understanding of human rights in international legal discourse’ at the ceremony, Professor Subedi said that:

The rise of populism and nationalism across the globe is posing an unprecedented challenge to the United Nations rights regime. Democratic governments themselves, including the original architects of the liberal system, have become direct and indirect enablers in the erosion of the universality of human rights by treating human rights as a tool of foreign policy.

He added:

Modern conceptions of human rights came from the collective wisdom of all major civilisations and religious traditions of the world. It is the history of the struggle to check the excesses of the government of the day.

Professor Subedi called upon human rights scholars to:

...unearth the origins of human rights values in different civilisations, challenge the narrower understanding of the history of human rights and standardized accounts of the events of the past, and question the dominant narratives pushed thus far.

Professor Subedi concluded by stating that:

The Western tradition is not the only natural habitat of human rights values. To a lesser degree but to a significant extent nonetheless, other non-Western traditions too have served as fertile grounds for pluralism, tolerance, social harmony and humanity. Our aim should be to establish connections between civilisations that are needed to chart the world of the future since human nature unites us all and transforms knowledge into wisdom.

Professor Subedi was recently invited to speak at Oxford Union’s prestigious debating society, opposing the proposition: ‘This House Believes that Liberal Democracy has Failed the Global South.’

He is a member of the School of Law’s Centre for Business Law and Practice