Synopsis

A thought-provoking lecture by Scott Cummings as he explores the growing role of lawyers in democratic backsliding.

Drawing on the U.S. experience, Cummings will analyze how some lawyers align with illiberal movements to weaken democratic institutions. This lecture is a collaboration between the NCHR and the HUMAN film festival.

The 'Current Issues in Human Rights Research' Lecture Series
The Norwegian Centre for Human Rights invites leading academics from across the globe to give presentations on their cutting edge research within the field of human rights. The aim of the lecture series is to explore human rights research from several viewpoints and disciplines.

About the Lecture
Scott Cummings will discuss the troubling trend of lawyers as architects of democratic backsliding. His talk will examine why some lawyers, sworn to uphold the rule of law, forge alliances with illiberal movements seeking to dismantle its core features. Drawing on the US experience, he will explore specific legal mobilization strategies used by lawyers to weaken democratic guardrails and undermine public trust, while considering the degree to which the organized legal profession can serve as a bulwark of democracy in dangerous times.

Screenings

About the Lecturer:
Scott Cummings is the Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics at the UCLA School of Law, where he teaches and writes about the legal profession, legal ethics, access to justice, and local government law. A recipient of the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, Professor Cummings is the founding faculty director of the UCLA Program on Legal Ethics and the Profession, which promotes empirical research and innovative programming on the challenges facing lawyers in the twenty-first century, and a long-time member of the UCLA David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. In 2021, Professor Cummings was selected as the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the European University Institute and a fellow at the Stanford Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences to study the role of lawyers in strengthening the rule of law. He was awarded a 2023 Guggenheim Fellowship to study the role of lawyers in democratic backsliding.

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