Human Rights Under Pressure: International Law in Times of Crisis

Human rights are under pressure – academically from the perspective of critical approaches, viewing them as a continuation of western power politics by other means. Politically and socially, human rights are a target for various populist movements that are hostile to its very ambition. But how do these developments impact on human rights law? How is the scholarship of human rights (and its law) affected by this development? And how does the practice of human rights institutions react to this changing environment? This panel discussion departs from the assumption that it is time to move beyond the diagnosis of the various crises such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Rather, it is the ambition of this event to clear the ground for a more nuanced and differentiated analysis. How does “the crisis” play out in various regional human rights systems? Is it a Eurocentric against human rights law in Western societies automatically affects the whole world? Are there specific treaty regimes at the universal level which continue more or less unaffected by the current situation? The participants to the panel discussion will take a fresh look at these questions from a legal as well as a historical and a policy perspective.

We will livestream the panel discussion with Tomer Broude (Jerusalem), Anne Peters (Heidelberg), Arnd Bauerkämper (FU Berlin), moderated by Helmut Aust (FU Berlin), organised by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (MPIL) in cooperation with the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program “Human Rights under Pressure – Ethics, Law, and Politics” (HR-UP) here on Verfassungsblog at 7:30 p.m. tonight. Please share and comment! #hrup