June 19, 2008

Buys to present human rights lecture in Lithuania

by Pete Rosenbery

Cindy Buys

CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Cindy Galway Buys, an associate professor with the SIU School of Law, will travel to Lithuania next month to present a lecture on human rights through a Fulbright Senior Scholars Grant.

Buys’ presentation is part of a 12-day Human Rights Summer School at Mykolas Romeris University’s law school in Vilnius. She is presenting “Bringing Human Rights Home: A Comparison of How International Human Rights are Incorporated into Domestic Legal Systems,” on July 24.

Buys notes there is a linkage agreement between SIUC and Mykolas Romeris. She was there about five years ago before Lithuania joined the European Union.

While the United States has had more than 200 years in developing its free expression doctrines, Lithuania’s changes are much more recent since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

She is excited to be returning to Lithuania.

“I’m interested to see what changes have been brought to the country,” she said. “I think it’s important to keep up these personal contacts and keep these linkages going.”

Buys’ lecture is to approximately 25 third- and fourth-year law students, along with professors, attorneys and judges. She will also serve as an international judge presiding over a two-day moot court exercise that focuses on human rights cases.

Buys joined the law school faculty in 2001. She teaches courses that include international law, constitutional law and immigration law.

Mykolas Romeris University, European Humanities University, Elon University in Greensboro, N.C. and the Human Rights Monitoring Institute are program sponsors.