I will be speaking at the “Promoting Children’s Rights in Europe: Recent Developments” conference organized by Genital Autonomy to be held at the University of Keele in England on September 16 and 17. My presentation–co-authored by Holm Putzke and to be published by Springer following the conference–will present an overview of German legal developments relating to the 2012 court case holding that male circumcision violates human rights and the law and the subsequent German legislation purporting to overturn that court case. As I will discuss–based on translations into English that ARC is arranging of a number of pertinent law review articles, book chapters, and legal cases–there are reasons to believe that the legislation may not be valid and that the earlier court decision is soundly based in medical ethics, law, and human rights.
Other speakers include the Secular Medical Forum’s Dr. Antony Lempert, Dutch medical ethicist Gert Van Dijk, Australian-born British barrister (and highly valued ARC collaborator) James Chegwidden, and Michelle O’Brien, who will be talking about intersex children and the United Nations.
There is still time to reserve space in this exciting conference by visiting www.genitalautonomy.org. ARC is very supportive of and impressed by Genital Autonomy’s approach and we are in discussions with GA about how we can more effectively and closely collaborate to help further leverage each other’s future initiatives.
Steven Svoboda
Attorneys for the Rights of the Child