Human Rights in Troubled Times

Oct. 17, 2024

Organiser: Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Place: Mishael Cheshin Hall (333), 3rd  floor, Cheshin Building, Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus Campus (Jerusalem, Israel) / hybrid
Time: 22 November 2024

The Symposium commemorates 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, focusing on how core values like human dignity shape our understanding of these rights. It will also address the pressing challenges of democratic erosion worldwide and the devastating collision between war and human rights in our time.

Hamas' brutal attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, marked a bitter turning point in Israel’s seventy-six-year history. The resulting Israel-Hamas War, which has also inflicted immense suffering on the Palestinian people, has sparked heated debates worldwide.
Against this backdrop, the aim of the Symposium is twofold: First, a series of questions about the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which once symbolized the hopeful possibility of a better world, will be addressed. What shapes our understanding and assumptions about human rights? How do core values like human dignity influence our conceptions of who and what human rights should protect and promote? What impact have global developments, such as the Cold War and decolonization, had on human rights discourse? And how can we explain that Jewish lawyers in the 1940s were instrumental in promoting both universal human rights and Zionism, perceiving both as responses to the Nazi regime and the failed minority rights system? Second, interdisciplinary in its approach, the Symposium confronts the historical significance of the human rights discourse and its ongoing relevance for contemporary conflicts. The organisers will address the pressing challenges of democratic erosion worldwide and the devastating collision between war and human rights in our own time.

Participation in-person and on Zoom. Please use this link to register: https://t.ly/UuQZr

Programme

09:30: Coffee

10:00 – 10:30
Greetings
- Tomer Broude (Dean, The Faculty of Law, HUJI)
- Iris Nachum (Deputy Director, Jacob Robinson Institute, HUJI)

Opening Remarks
Anne Rethmann (Jacob Robinson Institute)

10:30 – 11:30
Panel 1: Right to Have Rights in Historical Perspective
Chair: Manuela Consonni (HUJI)
- Jan Eckel (Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg): The Ambiguities of Global Human Rights in the 20th Century (via Zoom)
- Reut Yael Paz (Justus Liebig University Giessen): Beyond Victimhood: Jewish Scholarship and the Shaping of Human Rights

11:30 – 12:00: Coffee Break

12:00 – 13:30
Panel 2: Theoretical Foundations of Human Rights
Chair: Eran Shlomi (Jacob Robinson Institute)
- Matthias Mahlmann (University of Zurich): Human Dignity as a Legal Concept: Broken Promise, Empty Shell?
- Angelika Nußberger (University of Cologne): Controversies about the Universality of Human Rights (via Zoom)
- Mordechai Kremnitzer (Israel Democracy Institute): Why is Human Dignity Challenged?

13:30 – 14:30: Lunch

14:30 – 16:00
Panel 3: Human Rights – Sovereignty – Democracy
Chair: Jonathan Grossman (Jacob Robinson Institute)
- Jeffrey Kopstein (University of California, Irvine): The Assault on the State: Beyond the Democracy Debate (via Zoom)
- Limor Yehuda (Van Leer Jerusalem Institute/ HUJI): Collective Equality: A Keystone for Peace and Human Rights in Israel-Palestine
- Leora Bilsky (Tel Aviv University): In the Shadow of October 7th: Human Rights, Political Trials, and International Law

16:00 – 16:30: Coffee Break

16:30 – 18:00
Panel 4: Panel Discussion – Israel Today: Human Rights in Troubled Times
Moderator: Anne Rethmann (Jacob Robinson Institute)
- Barak Medina (HUJI)
- Amir Fuchs (Israel Democracy Institute)
- Manal Totry-Jubran (Bar-Ilan University)
- Chad Alan Goldberg (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

18:15 – 18:45
Concluding Remarks with Future Perspectives
Dan Diner (Director, Jacob Robinson Institute)

https://robinson.huji.ac.il/



Source: Human Rights in Troubled Times., in: H-Soz-Kult, 16.10.2024, http://www.hsozkult.de/event/id/event-150678.