Centre for European Law and Internationalisation
News and events
Upcoming
Annual Lecture Series - An Evidence-Based Framework for NATO’s Human Security Approach
Date: 20 October 2025 1.00pm - 2.00pm
Venue: [Hybrid] JGR Leicester Law School. Join via Microsoft Teams.
Speaker:
Dr Alexander Gilder, University of Reading
At the 2022 Madrid Summit, NATO adopted the ‘Human Security Approach and Guiding Principles’. Identifying human security as an ‘essential tool’, NATO has sought to integrate human security across the organisation to shape all of NATO’s core tasks. However, NATO’s 2022 Approach lacks depth, with underdeveloped principles that do not make clear the evidence base, the unique nature of the concept of human security, or how it can be the differentiating factor that improves protection outcomes. This lecture outlines NATO’s emerging shift to a human security approach and provides a framework of human security based on six evidence-based principles that provide additional depth and clarity to NATO’s approach. The framework can be used by NATO and its personnel, such as Human Security Advisors, Military Police and CIMIC officers, to develop and implement doctrine on human security in the NATO context.
About the speaker:
Dr Alexander Gilder is Associate Professor of International Law and Security at the School of Law, University of Reading (UK), Associate Faculty at the School of Humanitarian Studies, Royal Roads University (Canada) and Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (UK). As a leading expert on human security in military operations, he has worked as a Consultant/Contractor at NATO HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and NATO HQ Allied Rapid Reaction Corps and is a member of NATO's Research Task Group on Human Security and Military Operations. He has engaged with a wide variety of NATO and UK defence organisations to provide input on the development of human security doctrine and policy.
The UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago: Stakes, Legal Consequences, and Next Steps
Date: 4 November 2025 3.00pm - 4.00pm
Venue: Online. Join via Microsoft Teams.
Speaker:
Dr Sebastian Von Massow, NYU
In October 2024, the UK and Mauritius concluded an agreement recognizing Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago. The agreement was preceded by decades of litigation at the international and domestic levels. It nominally seeks to complete the decolonization of the archipelago. But what were the stakes of the various state and non-state parties involved in its negotiation? Does it square up to the ICJ’s Chagos Advisory Opinion? And what will it mean going forwards—for the archipelago and for the exiled Chagossians whose homeland it is?
About the speaker:
Sebastian von Massow is a Global Fellow at NYU, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Copenhagen, and Associate Editor at EJIL:Talk! He works on colonialism and EU law, the litigation of self-determination, and understanding projects of annexation.
Conference: ECHR and Venice Commission – Guarding Human Rights and the Rule of Law
Dates: 6–7 November 2025
Venue: British Institute of International and Comparative Law, London
Members of Leicester Law School (Professor Katja Ziegler, Dr Ed Bates, Dr Amal Sethi) will be participating in the upcoming international conference, “ECHR and Venice Commission: Guarding Human Rights and the Rule of Law, and Facilitating Constitutional Resilience”. The event marks the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights and the 35th anniversary of the Venice Commission and will explore the evolving role of the ECHR and the Venice Commission in promoting human rights, constitutional resilience, and multi-layered rights protection across Europe and the UK.
The event is co-hosted by the Centre for European Law and Internationalisation (CELI) and the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law.