The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 75: Rethinking and Constructing its Future Together
The 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be celebrated on 10 December 2023. Since its adoption, the Declaration has been read in multiple ways. Some have been inspired by it, others have found it wanting. At this conference, Ghent University will take stock and look forward, embracing a resolute engagement with human rights in their multiple contemporary dimensions.
The conference will put special emphasis on stepping out of our comfort or habitual zones and creating spaces for debating and learning from different perspectives. We invite contributions from scholars, practitioners, policy makers and artists who cross or are willing to cross boundaries and build bridges between academic disciplines, theory and practice, and political action and artistic engagement. Activists, policy makers, artists, and students are warmly invited to participate alongside both emerging and established academics.
The conference is an initiative of the UGent Human Rights Research Network (HRRN), which brings together researchers at Ghent University working on human rights in different disciplines. The network stimulates interdisciplinary collaboration and fosters the societal impact of academic research in close cooperation with societal stakeholders. At this conference, we want to reach out to those who wish to contribute to the collective reflection on and construction of human rights knowledge and praxis.
We want to inject human rights with new energy, learn from each other and join forces. We shall meet, we shall walk, we shall talk, we shall co-create. Look at this conference as a major brainstorm—or as a big celebration from which you will return with new ideas, new friendships and new resolutions.