Hubert Smekal from the Czech Centre for Human Rights and Democratization attended Diplomatic Conference in Venice on Review of the Human Rights Council, organized by the EIUC - European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation. The representatives of the scholarly public, European Union, foreign ministries of the EU Member States and UN human rights bodies all participated in the conference. Alongside of the assesment of an existing functioning of the Human Rights Council and sharing stances towards the review conference, which will be held next year, the criticism of not always harmonious cooperation among EU Member States on the UN ground has also been raised.

We would like to invite you to the international conference “HOW TO COMMUNICATE POLITICS” to be held November 22-23 2010 at the Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic. The conference is organized by the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies Masaryk University in cooperation with International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University, The Institute for Comparative Political Research and The Political Marketing Group CEE.

Marriott Hotel Prague hosted a meeting from the series "Energy Security of the Czech Republic - Should Energy Supplies Be Taken for Granted?" on June 22nd. The event has been organized by the IIPS MU together with the Institute for Public Discussion and the Ekonom Weekly. It discussed the nuclear tender of CEZ and assessment of the impact of new blocs' construction on the Czech republic.

On Tuesday, 22th June 2010, another conference from the series dedicated to the energy security of the Czech Republic will be held. The series are organized by the International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University, Institute for Public Discussion and the Ekonom weekly. The topic of this meeting will be the nuclear tender of the CEZ company and visitors will again be provided with opinions of renowned experts from the field as well as participating companies.

Next conference from the series dedicated to the energy security of the Czech republic will be held on Tuesday, 1st June 2010. The conferences are organized by the International Institute of Political Science of the Masaryk University, together with the Institute for Public Discussion and the Ekonom weekly. The topic of this meeting will be the coal minining and participants will be able to hear opinions of most respected experts within this field.

Energetics and related issue of energy security is one of the priorities of the Czech government for upcoming decades. It is key area the orientation of which can't be changed in every four years. That's why clear strategy which will influence the future of the Czech Republic has to be defined. The Ekonom weekly, Institute for Public Discussion (Institut pro veřejnou diskusi) and the International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University organize a course of seven discussion meetings on the topic 'Energy Security of the Czech Republic: Should Energy Supplies Be Taken for Granted?'. These conferences will deal with the energy security, coal reserves, new gas pipelines building, renewables and other current topics. The aim of these meetings is to avoid the formation of both public opinion and strategic political decisions concerning essential energy questions based on simplified media information. These discussions will enable independent and apolitical information of public regarding the alternatives of the energy future. More information is available here.

The second symposium on Czech foreign policy was hosted by the Institute of International Relations in Prague from 3rd to 5th May 2010 in the Černínsky Palace. Large conference with wide range of topics covered was attended by four representatives of the Czech Centre for Human Rights and Democratization. Ľubomír Majerčík presented a paper on relocation of people suspected of terrorism, as conducted by the United States. He argued that this practice contravened the international law. Helena Bončková and Hubert Smekal presented next paper, which dealt with the Czech Republic and its exemption from the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The authors showed that this so-called exemption didn't really represent and exemption. Lukáš Hoder then presented a paper on atlanticism in the Czech foreign policy. All of the presented papers will be featured on the website of the Czech Centre for Human Rights and Democratization and they will also be published in a volume edited by the Institute of International Relations.

First discussion meeting named ‘Energy Security of the Czech republic - Ideas vs. Myths vs. Reality‘ took place in the Prague Marriott Hotel in late April. The discussion is part of the series ‘Energy Security of the Czech Republic: Should Energy Supplies Be Taken for Granted?‘ organized by the International Institute of Political Science of Masaryk University, Ekonom weekly and Institute for Public Discussion. The event was attended by Jiří Schneider (PSSI), Blahoslav Němeček (Energy Regulatory Office), David Buchan (Oxford Institute for Energy Studies), Aleš Michl (Raiffeisenbank), Václav Pačes (Independent Energy Commission), who all gave presentations on the topic. The discussion was also attended by Petr Holub (Ministry of the Environment) and Alan Svoboda (ČEZ).

The Czech Centre for Human Rights and Democratization cooperated with ELSA Košice on the international conference named Human Rights Forum, hosted in Košice from 13th to 14th May. The event took place on the occasion of 60th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights and 20th anniversary of the Venice Commission. The conference was also attended by Slovak judge at the European Court of Human Rights JUDr. Ján Šikuta. Our Centre was represented by Hubert Smekal with a paper on the EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Moreover, Ľubomír Majerčík, co-founder of the Czech Centre of Human Rights and Democratization, is nowadays guest of the prestigious legal blog "Jiné Právo".

Charles University hosted the Young Scholars Conference in the CERGE institute in April 2010. The event was coorganized by the Technical University in Dresden, Wroclaw University and University De Montfort in Leicester. The theme of the conference were new topics of the European security. More particularly, the papers covered topics such as the ESDP and the piracy in the Horn of Africa, European Neighbourhood Policy and frozen conflicts, or security of energy supplies, among others. The analysts of the IIPS MU Petr Ocelík and Jan Osička have discussed the case studies of Qatar and Iran as a potential suppliers of the natural gas to the EU.

On 3rd May 2010, the Faculty of Social Studies of the Masaryk University hosted a conference named International Criminal Court - Perspectives of International Crimes Judging. The conference consisted of two panels in which both the practitioners and scholars presented various aspects of the functioning of the ICC. Their contributions demonstrated the fact that there were experts on the topic also in the Czech Republic and Slovakia interested in the topic and with plenty of ideas on it.