MEDIA ADVISORY: Ireland's first female president to hold press conference Thursday at KU

WHO: Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland, the former United Nations high commissioner for human rights and an accomplished human rights lawyer.

WHEN: 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24.

WHERE: Rice Room, 512 Green Hall, University of Kansas School of Law. (Take elevator to 5th floor.) Best parking will be in the garage across Irving Hill Road from the law school.

Robinson is visiting KU to present an address on "Human Rights and Ethical Globalization" at 7 p.m. April 24 in 120 Budig Hall. The speech is free and open to the public. During her visit, she also will meet with law school faculty members and first-year law students.

BACKGROUND: Robinson was president of Ireland from 1990 to 1997 and the U.N. high commissioner for human rights from 1997 to 2002. Now based in New York, Robinson is leading a new project, the Ethical Globalization Initiative, supported by a partnership of the Aspen Institute, the State of the World Forum and the Swiss-based International Council on Human Rights Policy. Its goal is to bring the norms and standards of human rights into the globalization process and to support capacity building in good governance in developing countries, with an initial focus on Africa.

KU AND IRELAND: KU Spencer Research Library holdings in Irish literature include some of the most significant collections in the world for such Irish literary giants as James Joyce and William Butler Yeats. At the center of the library's Irish holdings is the P.S. O'Hegarty Collection. Created by the former secretary of the Irish Post Office, the collection contains some 25,000 items from Irish history and literature, dating from the 17th to 20th centuries. All together the Irish holdings at Spencer constitute one of the largest concentrations of Irish materials outside of Ireland.

Robinson's presentation is made possible by the Stephenson Lectures in Law & Government and the David H. Fisher funds.