The Limits of Universality: The Middle East and the Crisis of Human Rights

This talk will examine how the universal promise of human dignity and human rights has been repeatedly compromised across the Middle East—by states, global powers, and the very system meant to uphold these rights. Moving beyond familiar narratives, it explores structural contradictions in the conception of humanitarian intervention, the political forces that distort the application of human rights, and the lived consequences for communities on the ground.

Aslı Ü. Bâli is Howard M. Holtzmann Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Prior to joining Yale, she was Professor of Law at UCLA, founding faculty director of the Promise Institute forHuman Rights and director of the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies. Her teaching and research focus on public international law — particularly human rights law — and comparative constitutional law, with a focus on the Middle East. She is widely published in leading law journals, peer-reviewed social science journals and is co-editor of two volumes on comparative law published by Cambridge University Press. She is President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, co-chair of the Advisory Board for the Middle East Division of Human Rights Watch and on the board of the American Journal of International Law.

Lunch will be served inside of Room 170 starting at 12:40 PM. RSVP here.