Leader of Canada’s Liberal Party from 2006-11 Michael Ignatieff will present the lecture “Human Rights and the Challenge of Authoritarian Capitalism” at 4 p.m. Thursday in the Palmer Commons Forum Hall.

Ignatieff will discuss what he refers to as “a new type of regime that challenges the authority and legitimacy of international human rights: authoritarian capitalism in Russia, China, and the states that have adopted that form of rule.”

Ignatieff is the Edward R. Murrow Chair of Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also holds an appointment at the Munk School of Public Affairs at the University of Toronto, and is the Centennial Chair at the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York. His most recent book is “Fire and Ashes: Success and Failure in Politics” (2013).

Ignatieff will examine how human rights defenders can respond to the challenge of new forms of tyranny. “These regimes allow private freedom, while repressing public liberty. This is what makes them stable,” he says.

The event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by the Human Rights Initiative, International Institute, Program in International and Comparative Studies, and the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.