News & Events

The Irish Centre for Human Rights continues its lunchtime seminar series with a seminar on 'Migration Policy: What’s the Connection Between Nation-Centered Justice and Human Rights?' by Hiroshi Motomura, UCLA School of Law, LA. The seminar takes place at 1pm, Monday, 3rd April 2023, in the Seminar Room, Irish Centre for Human Rights or via Zoom. Prof Motomura will also give a workshop on 'Why National Borders, and When Are They Ethical?' from 2.30pm-4pm. All are welcome to attend. Please contact humanrights@universityofgalway.ie for the Zoom link. 

Many critics of migration policies around the world voice their objections as a matter of human rights. This framework stands in some contrast to much of prevailing discourse in the United States, where justice for immigrants is largely approached as a matter of nation-centered justice, especially in the language of civil rights. This seminar will explore the connection between nation-centered justice and human rights by looking at the emergence of a civil rights framework for immigration law and immigrants’ rights in the United States, and by assessing the potential and perils of this approach.

Hiroshi Motomura is a teacher and scholar of immigration and citizenship, with influence across a range of academic disciplines and in federal, state, and local policymaking. His book, Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States (Oxford 2006) won the Professional and Scholarly Publishing (PROSE) Award from the Association of American Publishers as the year’s best book in Law and Legal Studies, and was chosen by the U.S. Department of State for its Suggested Reading List for Foreign Service Officers. He is a co-author of two immigration-related casebooks: Immigration and Citizenship: Process and Policy (9th ed. West 2021), and Forced Migration: Law and Policy (2d ed. West 2013), and he has published many widely cited articles on immigration and citizenship. His most recent book, Immigration Outside the Law (Oxford 2014), won the Association of American Publishers' Law and Legal Studies 2015 PROSE Award and was chosen by the Association of College and Research Libraries as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title.