MIAMI, Florida (March 2, 2012)—University students and professors from Latin America and the United States will debate the relevance of freedom of expression in the context of the inter-American human rights system during a hemispheric conference to be held by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) later this month in Washington, D.C.
Representatives of 15 university schools of law and journalism from 11 countries will have the opportunity to examine the system’s successes, setbacks and challenges; analyze litigation cases against conciliatory ones; compare defamation and access to public information norms in various countries of the Americas; and review recommendations for public policy reforms to combat impunity generated by university representatives from the region.
The hemispheric conference titled “The Inter-American System and Freedom of Expression” has been organized jointly by the IAPA, American University and Stanford University, in collaboration with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). It will be held from March 26-27 at the College of Law of American University. Participants will also have the opportunity to visit the headquarters of the IACHR that during those days will be holding its annual ordinary sessions.
The Conference seeks to create greater awareness among future society leaders about existing mechanisms for the defense of human rights, press freedoms and free speech. In addition to the panel discussions, the Conference seeks for students and academics to reach consensus about the themes and come up with conclusions that would be circulated among other centers of study.
Milton Coleman, IAPA’s President and Senior Editor of The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.; Claudio Grossman, Dean of American University School of Law; Pablo Saavedra, Secretary of the Inter-American Human Rights Court; Santiago Cantón, IACHR Executive Secretary; Catalina Botero, IACHR Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression; César Pérez, Managing Editor of the Ecuadorean newspaper El Universo; Gustavo Mohme, Chair of the IAPA Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information and Editor of the Lima, Peru, newspaper La República, and Miguel Henrique Otero, Chair of the IAPA Chapultepec Committee and Editor of the Caracas, Venezuela, newspaper El Nacional are among the Conference panelists.
The invited universities include the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Centro Universitario Metodista of Porto Alegre, Brazil; the Universidad Diego Portales, Chile; the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia; the Universidad San Francisco of Quito, Ecuador; American University and Stanford University, United States; the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico; the Universidad de Ciencias Comerciales, Nicaragua; the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas, Peru; the Universidad Iberoamericana, Dominican Republic, and the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello, Venezuela.
The Conference, being offered free of charge, forms part of the IAPA’s Chapultepec Project.
The event has been made possible through the generous support of the James McClatchy Fund of the San Francisco Foundation; the Scripps Howard News Service and The Scripps Howard Foundation; the Central Valley Foundation; The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; the James B. McClatchy Chair of Stanford University; and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
More information: http://www.sipiapa.org/v4/conferencia.php?idioma=us
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
