Speaking on the topic of cultural genocide, Osgoode alumnus and McGill University Professor Payam Akhavan will be the guest speaker at the annual Jean-Gabriel Castel Lecture.
Payam Akhavan (image: Wikimedia Commons)
The talk, “Cultural Genocide: Legal Label or Mourning Metaphor?,” will be presented on Jan. 14, from 7:30 to 9pm at BMO Conference Centre, Glendon Hall, Glendon campus.
Akhavan is a teacher and researcher of public international law, international dispute settlement, international criminal law, human rights and cultural pluralism. He has published work on the subject of the prevention of genocide extensively in leading journals and is the co-producer of the documentary film Genos.Cide: The Great Challenge (2009).
His book Reducing Genocide to Law: Definition, Meaning, and the Ultimate Crime (2012) has been met with high acclaim.
Akhavan earned a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, followed by a SJD from Harvard Law School. He has served as chairman of the Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide, and is a founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, a prosecutor of the Iran People’s Tribunal, a member of the U.K. Child Sexual Abuse People’s Tribunal, and has contributed to the activities of numerous non-governmental organizations and grassroots survivors’ groups.
If you are planning to attend this lecture, RSVP to invitation@glendon.yorku.ca.
This lecture, sponsored by Bennett & Gastle P.C., Lawyers, Toronto, will be presented in English.
The Jean-Gabriel Castel Lecture was created in 2004 to honour Professor Jean-Gabriel Castel, an internationally acknowledged jurist and now Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus in international law at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an officer of the Order of Canada. For a decade, Professor Castel taught international law to Glendon’s undergraduate students in the International Studies program.