The Societās project will host a set of workshops exploring how freedom of association is protected in laws and courts around the world.
The right to freedom of association is recognised as a human right in constitutions and international human rights treaties throughout the world. Yet caselaw and scholarship is relatively sparse.
Perhaps this is because the right to freedom of association is so unusual: it recognises and protects individuals, but in their sociality rather than their individuality. It thereby transcends the individual-state paradigm by relying on the existence and flourishing of private associations.
Societās is a four-year funded project led by Maria Cahill (School of Law, UCC) exploring the potential of freedom of association, beginning with a comparative doctrinal analysis of the ways in which this right is understood and vindicated across multiple jurisdictions.
The project will host a virtual symposium on the right to freedom of association in March 2023 followed by an in-person hybrid symposium at University College Cork in June 2023.
The events will sketch out the legal nature, scope and potential of the right to freedom of association in legal systems around the world.
We are eager to hear from lawyers in as many different jurisdictions as possible and particularly from lawyers in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and South America.
Full details of the symposia can be found in the following document: Freedom of Association Symposia - Call for Participants