Time for change? The power of the President of the United States and international law

The Danish Institute for Human Rights has the pleasure of inviting you to a seminar with Niels Bjerre-Poulsen and Peter Vedel Kessing, who will be speaking on:

Time for Change?

The power of the President of the United States and international law

Thursday 12 March at 10:00 – 12:00

The Bush-administration has been strongly criticized for the way it has been fighting terrorism. Suspected terrorists have been detained for years without court hearings and exposed to torture and other forms of ill-treatment. The US Department of Justice and the Department of Defense drafted a number of legal memos in the months and years following 9/11, establishing the legal framework for the treatment of suspected al Qaeda terrorists.

On the 22nd January 2009, President Obama revoked all executive directives, orders and regulations concerning detention and interrogation of detained individuals issued by the Bush-administration from September 11, 2001, to January 20, 2009. Many of these memos have been – and are still being – released. Niels Bjerre-Poulsen and Peter Vedel Kessing will discuss some of the Memos issued by the Bush-administration and the views they represent on international law and the power of the American President as commander in Chief.

Niels Bjerre-Poulsen is Associate Professor MSK at the Copenhagen Business School, where he is also the Director of the Center for the Study of the Americas. He holds a Ph.D. in American History from University of California, Santa Barbara. Peter Vedel Kessing defended his ph.d. on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights at Copenhagen Faculty of Law in June 2008. He is research fellow at the Danish Institute for Human Rights

All are welcome

The seminar takes place at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, the Nordskov Room, Wilders Plads 8H, 1401 Copenhagen K. Registration is not needed.

The seminar is part of the Human Rights Seminar Series 2009: “Europe and the Americas: Transatlantic Approaches to Human Rights” (see attached programme). For more information, please contact Eva Maria Lassen (eva@humanrights.dk, or 32698845).