Fundamental Rights Conference 2011
Keynote speakers
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Ilze Brands Kehris
Chairperson of the FRA Management Board since the beginning of 2010. Ms Brands Kehris is Director of the Office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, located in the Hague.
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Radoslaw Sikorski
Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs since 2007. From 2005 to 2007, Mr Sikorski served as a Minister for National Defence.
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Cecilia Malmström
European Commissioner in charge of Home Affairs since February 2010. Among her various responsibilities are EU work on police cooperation, border control, asylum and migration.
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Claude Moraes
Member of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).
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Belinda Pyke
European Commission Director for Migration and Borders. She took up the post in the Directorate-General for Home Affairs in April 2011. Ms Pyke was the Director for Equality between 2007 and March 2011.
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Kyung-wha Kang
United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights since January 2007. Before joining the United Nations, Ms Kang was Director-general of International Organisations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea.
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Morten Kjaerum
Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Prior to taking this position in June 2008, Mr Kjaeurm worked on Human Rights for 25 years.
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Feliciano Barreiras Duarte
Secretary of State to the Deputy and Parliamentary Affairs Minister in Portugal. Among other areas, his responsibilities include immigration and integration.
Entitled 'Dignity and rights of irregular migrants', the FRC will address challenges faced by irregular migrants in the European Union. The FRC is the flagship event of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), organised with the support of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The conference will bring together about 300 participants from across the EU, including policy-makers, specialists and practitioners from the local to the international level, including Member State and EU officials, local authorities, intergovernmental organisations, specialised human rights bodies, professional associations, social partners and civil society organisations, including those representing the rights of irregular migrants.
The FRC promotes innovative policies, promising practices as well as future and on-going projects through practice-oriented workshops, marketplace of ideas and interactive plenary sessions. FRA’s EU-wide research on the situation of irregular migrants will inform the discussions.
The following video highlights the challenges faced by irregular migrants in the European Union.
Objectives
The key objectives of this year’s FRC are:
- Inform debate among specialists, practitioners and policy-makers at EU and national level about the situation of irregular migrants across the 27 Member States and raise awareness about the need to develop appropriate policies and practices that guarantee the rights of irregular migrants.
- Discuss practical follow-up to the FRA research on this issue, with a view to promote the mainstreaming of fundamental rights standards into migration management.
- Provide a forum for networking and sharing promising practices to support access to fundamental rights for irregular migrants.
FRC - greener and more socially responsible!
The Fundamental Rights Conference aims to be a socially responsible and environment friendly event. To this end, all the conference documents will be printed on environmentally friendly paper. The catering service will provide exclusively local or fair trade products and is engaged in supporting a range of social initiatives. Moreover, we assessed greenhouse gas emissions linked to the energy consumption of the Fundamental Rights Conference and will compensate for carbon emissions by supporting a selected carbon project initiative.
