January Holocaust Memorial Lecture at NUI Galway

Professor William A. Schabas, Emeritus Professor at NUI Galway’s Irish Centre for Human Rights will deliver a Holocaust Memorial Lecture on the role that ideas of racial superiority played in the Holocaust. The lecture, entitled “Genocide, the Holocaust, and the Lie of Racial Superiority”, will take place on Wednesday, 23 January at 7pm in the Lecture Theatre, Ryan Institute Annexe, NUI Galway

Professor Schabas will discuss international efforts, including those of international law, to condemn notions of racial superiority, linking this to the Holocaust, but also to colonialism and the slave trade. He will talk briefly about his own family's experiences with Nazi racism and genocide.

Professor Ray Murphy, Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway, said: “There are echoes of the narrative of racial superiority and hatred that preceded the Holocaust in much of the political discourse around the world today. For this reason it is important to recall the language used by political leaders and the events that led to the Holocaust to ensure we do not repeat the mistakes of the past.”

The event will be introduced by Professor Siobhán Mullally, Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights and chaired by Professor Pól Ó Dochartaigh, Registrar and Deputy President at NUI Galway.

Professor Schabas is Emeritus Professor of Human Rights Law at NUI Galway and honorary chairman of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, Professor of International Law at Middlesex University and at Leiden University, and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He is an invited visiting scholar at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Politiques), Honorary Professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, visiting fellow of Kellogg College of the University of Oxford, visiting fellow of Northumbria University, and professeur associé at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Professor Schabas is also a 'door tenant' at the chambers of 9 Bedford Row, in London.

Professor Schabas has published extensively in the field of international human rights and criminal law. His most recent book is The Trial of the Kaiser, published by Oxford University Press.