April 11th, 2018, Venice International University
Room 1G, 5pm

Speakers
Andrea Buratti, Università Tor Vergata Roma, The Proportionality Principle in the Jurisprudence of Constitutional Courts
Sara De Vido, Università Ca' Foscari, Fundamental Human Rights
Massimo Papa, Università Tor Vergata Roma, Constitutional Values

Hiroshi Nishihara taught "Social Exclusion and Human Rights" and "Comparing East and West" at VIU in Fall 2017. He was due to return to Venice in February, to teach in the Spring 2018 semester, when he tragically passed away in a car accident in Tokyo. He was highly esteemed by colleagues, students and staff.

Now three VIU Law professors of Fall 2017 are rejoining to pay a tribute to his intellectual and scholarly contributions.

Nishihara was Professor of Constitutional Law at Waseda University, where he has also been Dean of the Graduate School of Social Sciences and Director of the Institute of Social Sciences. He was National Bar Examiner for the Ministry of Justice of Japan. He was internationally renowned and author of a number of authoritative academic books and articles in Japanese, German and English, and of a book, explaining the Japanese Constitution to primary and middle school students. His main fields were Constitutionalism, Fundamental Theories on Human Rights, Constitution of the Welfare State and Sex Equality.

Nishihara was a champion of "constitutional values", historically understood in the framework of Human Rights and Democracy. He thought, that in today's plural societies, which are challenged by multiculturalism and feminism, "the significance of constitutional values lies not in maximizing the contribution to national culture at the expense of the rights and interests of minorities, but in making peaceful coexistence possible". In our cosmopolitan world, he believed, constitutional values had to be established at a global level.

Everybody is invited.