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Notre Dame professor to give speech March 29 on human rights, global response to Libya, Syria

March 3, 2012
George A. Lopez

George A. Lopez

Notre Dame professor George A. Lopez will visit NIU later this month to deliver a lecture titled, “Liberating Libya, Strangling Syria: Intervening for Human Rights and Protection.”

The lecture will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 29, in the Sky Room of the Holmes Student Center.

The Phi Beta Delta Honor Society for International Scholars, NIU Division of International Programs and NIU University Honors Program are sponsoring the talk.

Lopez is the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., Professor of Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame. He will discuss the responses by the international community to uprisings in Libya and Syria.

The fall of Gaddafi in Libya, supported through UN Security Council endorsement of heavy sanctions and western military action, meant to some analysts and diplomats that the era of state sovereignty was coming to an end and the “responsibility to protect” had begun.

But the international community did not respond to the Syrian crackdown with the same actions, and the people of Syria continue to suffer extreme repression.

Lopez will discuss the situation in Syria as it relates to the international issues of state sovereignty and the role global institutions are expected to play if, as some analysts and diplomats believe, the era of state sovereignty is coming to an end.

The events in Libya and Syria might seem far removed from the United States. But U.S. government involvement in powerful international bodies and public activism in grassroots political efforts, such as the Occupy Movement, increasingly make these international conflicts relevant to our everyday lives.

Professor Lopez has been featured by numerous national news sources, such as CNN, the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.

For more information on the presentation, contact Pamela Rosenberg at prosenberg@niu.edu or (815) 753-9530.