Wolfson@50 - "But still the days seem the same": Law and Social Change in Britain, 1965-2015 (Conor Gearty)

Duration: 55 mins 51 secs

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Description:	This is series of specially-commissioned 50-minute lectures to celebrate the first half-century of Wolfson College. In the series, eleven distinguished members of the college reflect on developments in their fields of expertise in the half-century since Wolfson was founded.


Created:	2015-03-06 19:14
Collection:	50th Anniversary Lectures
Publisher:	University of Cambridge
Copyright:	Glenn Jobson
Language:	eng (English)


Abstract:	In 1965 Parliament was debating the first Race Relations Bill, with many arguing that even minimal controls on racist speech violated our core civil liberties. The Wilson Government was finally agreeing to the right of individuals to take the UK government to the European Commission and Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And a young academic – later to be President of Wolfson College – was exposing the power of the executive to act as it wished in the field of national security. So much has changed over the course of the last fifty years. Or has it? Conor Gearty did his first degree in University College Dublin, after which he took a Masters in Law at Wolfson College Cambridge, followed by a PhD. He was a Fellow and Lecturer in law at Emmanuel College from 1983-90, from where for a time he also directed law studies at Wolfson College. He subsequently moved to King’s College London and is now at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he is Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the School. He has written many books on human rights, civil liberties and terrorism, most recently Liberty and Security (Polity, 2013). He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a practising barrister and Bencher at Middle Temple, and has honorary degrees from UCD , Sacred Heart, Brunel and Roehampton universities.

Abstract:

In 1965 Parliament was debating the first Race Relations Bill, with many arguing that even minimal controls on racist speech violated our core civil liberties. The Wilson Government was finally agreeing to the right of individuals to take the UK government to the European Commission and Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And a young academic – later to be President of Wolfson College – was exposing the power of the executive to act as it wished in the field of national security. So much has changed over the course of the last fifty years. Or has it?

Conor Gearty did his first degree in University College Dublin, after which he took a Masters in Law at Wolfson College Cambridge, followed by a PhD. He was a Fellow and Lecturer in law at Emmanuel College from 1983-90, from where for a time he also directed law studies at Wolfson College. He subsequently moved to King’s College London and is now at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he is Professor of Human Rights Law and Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the School. He has written many books on human rights, civil liberties and terrorism, most recently Liberty and Security (Polity, 2013). He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a practising barrister and Bencher at Middle Temple, and has honorary degrees from UCD , Sacred Heart, Brunel and Roehampton universities.

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