Theme

This one-day workshop will bring together officials and researchers working on the Council of Europe and international norms more generally. Our emphasis on the Council of Europe givesa concrete empirical starting point for consideration of international norms, norm ‘entrepreneurship’, and human rights.

• How do norms come onto the international political agenda?
• How are they turned into political or legal instruments?
• Who are the norm ‘entrepreneurs’?
• Why do member states risk becoming entangled in an international normative and legal discourse about human rights that their governments may try to avoid 'at home'?

It would be easy for states not to cooperate, or subvert ‘norm production’ inside the Council of Europe itself. Yet member states tend not to do this. This is part of what former Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis has referred to as 'the best kept secret in Europe'. The workshop sets out to unpack this 'secret' by combining a review of current research on the emergence and institutionalization of international norms using the Council of Europe as afocus for a discussion about the conceptual and empirical challenges of studying norm ‘entrepreneurship.

Programme

Session One, 10.00am - 11.30am:
What is‘norm entrepreneurship’? How can we study it?

Chair: Dr Gwendolyn Sasse, University of Oxford

Panellists:

Prof Jeffrey Checkel, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver: Norm Entrepreneurship - Theoretical and Methodological Challenges

Dr Jennifer Jackson-Preece, London School of Economics: Where do norms come from?

Dr Sabine Saurugger, Sciences Po, Grenoble: Norm creation and resistance to norms - is soft law irresistible?

Session Two, 11.45am- 1.00pm:
The Role of the Council of Europe in the Evolution of Norms

Chair: Professor Denis Galligan, University of Oxford

Panellists:

Prof. Anne Deighton, University of Oxford: War, Law, and the Cold War: The UK and the Making of the European Convention on Human Rights

Dr Gwendolyn Sasse, University of Oxford: Explaining the Momentum behind the Council of Europe’s Norm Entrepreneurship

Manuel Lezertua, Director of Legal Advice and Public International Law (Jurisconsult), Council of Europe: Sixty Years of Normative Production in the Council of Europe: The Legal Nature, Elaboration, Challenges and Trends of the CoE Conventions

Session Three, 2.00pm-3.30pm:
Norm Entrepreneurship in Specific Issue Areas of the Council of Europe

Chair: Dr Cristina Parau, University of Oxford

Panellists:

Dr Kundai Sithole, Wolfson College: The Council of Europe and the death penalty: intergovernmental legitimation as enabling and constraining

Prof. Rainer Hoffmann, University of Frankfurt & former President of the Advisory Committee of the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of Minorities: The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities: From Standard-Setting to Standard-Implementation

Dr Daniel Smilov, University of Sofia & Centre for Liberal Studies, Sofia: Hard Law, Soft Law and the Politics of Standards: Regulating Political Parties in Europe

Session Four: 3.45pm - 5.30pm:
Norm Entrepreneurship in Comparative Perspective

Chair: Professor Anne Deighton, University of Oxford

Panellists:

Prof. Valsamis Mitsilegas, School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London: From Conditionality to Disconnection - The Ambivalent Relationship between the Council of Europe and the European Union in the Field of Criminal Justice

Dr Eiko Thielemann, London School of Economics, and Natascha Zaun, Universität Bremen: Raising Regulatory Standards: Bargains, Institutions & Norms in the Development of the Common European Asylum System

Prof Richard Caplan, University of Oxford: The International ‘Responsibility to Protect’ and the ‘Responsibility to Rebuild’ – A Dual Agenda

Concluding Discussion:

Terry Davis, former Secretary General of the Council of Europe