Call for Contributions

‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 75: Rethinking and Constructing its Future Together’

International Inter-Transdisciplinary Conference

6-8 December, 2023 | Ghent University

Ghent University will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with an international and inter-/transdisciplinary conference ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights at 75: Rethinking and Constructing its Future Together’, from 6 to 8 December 2023.
The conference is an initiative of the Human Rights Research Network (HRRN), which brings together researchers at Ghent University working on human rights in different disciplines.
At this conference, they want to 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.
Contributions from scholars, students, 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 are invited.
Proposals are welcomed in several formats, ranging from papers and panels to walking sessions, student sessions and artistic expressions.
In particular (but not exclusively), proposals in relation to the following conference themes:
  • Climate Justice
  • Decolonisation and Racial Justice
  • Realising the Right to Food
  • Digital Technologies and Human Rights
  • Migration and Human Rights
  • The Politics of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights
  • Human Rights and Trade at the Local Level
  • Human Rights, Truth and Power
  • Human Rights Knowledge through Experience
  • Multi-layered Rights Protection in Europe
  • Human Rights and Accountability
  • Data, Methods and Methodology in Human Rights Research
More information about the conference themes, contribution formats, and submission guidelines can be found on the conference website: https://hrrn.ugent.be/conf2023/
The call for contributions is now open
The deadline for submissions is 16 April 2023
Announced keynote speakers:
  • Dr. Agnes Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International,
  • Prof. Marie Bénédicte Dembour, Professor of Law and Anthropology at Ghent University,
  • Prof. Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights and Professor of Law at the University of Louvain, and
  • Dr. Craig Santos Perez, Poet and Professor in the English Department at the University of Hawai’I, Mãnoa.
The Scientific and Organising Committee
Eva Brems, Giselle Corradi, Stef Craps, Marie-Benedicte Dembour, Ellen Desmet, Tine Destrooper, Marijke D’Haese, Jan Orbie, Didier Reynaert, Christel Stalpaert, Geert Van Hove