Conference: Human rights under pressure?

17 June 2014

The institute is co-organising conference on state of the art research in human rights across disciplines, topics and regions.

The largest international research network within the human rights field, AHRI (Association of Human Rights Institutes) will be framing the conference, "Human Rights under Pressure: Exploring norms, institutions and policies". The Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen are organising the AHRI conference 2014.

Research Director at the institute, Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen says about the conference:

“This is the first time that AHRI is hosting a general human rights conference open to non-members, and the response to our call for papers has been overwhelming.With more than 100 presentations from some of the best senior and junior human rights scholars around the world, the 2014 AHRI Conference is set to become a key gathering point for state of the art research in human rights across disciplines, topics and regions. Its key ambition is to get us critically thinking about not just the state of human rights, but also the challenges confronting human rights researchers today.”

Conflicting developments

Over the past 20 years the human rights agenda has advanded at a pace few could have imagined. Political, economic, social and legal developments have each helped bolster protection and secure accountability for human rights abuses. Admist these developments, however, the human rights project has been marred by a sense of impending crisis. Wide-scale human rights violations remain abound, and human rights have come under pressure in regard to thorny issues such as immigration, the fight against terror and surveillance. In addition, the human rights project has been accused of politicisation and several governments have criticised international human rights institutions for advancing rights too far.

This conference provides a venue for critically refleting upon these contrasting developments and for presenting the state of the art of human rights research across disciplines and topics. The conference will have around 100 presentations from international scholars.

The AHRI Conference 2014, ”Human Rights under Pressure: Exploring norms, institutions and policies” will be taking place in Copenhagen September 29 and 30 2014.