Doris Conant Lecture on Women and Culture: Louis Arbour November 7, 2008

Sixty years ago, Eleanor Roosevelt was a driving force behind the launch of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, surely one of the greatest secular documents in modern history. At the same time, US Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, appointed as US prosecutor in the Nuremberg trial, was embarking on the boldest international criminal justice initiative ever undertaken. Today, however, the United States has opted out of both the 47- member UN Human Rights Council, and the Rome Treaty creating the International Criminal Court. Canadian Louise Arbour recently completed a distinguished four-year mandate as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and previously served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and as Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She will deliver a timely lecture entitled “International Human Rights and Justice: Walking in the Big Footprints of Eleanor Roosevelt and Robert Jackson.”

This annual lecture honors Festival supporter Doris Conant in recognition of a generous gift to the Chicago Humanities Festival by the Conant Family Foundation.

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