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Call for Applications
Theme: The Diversity of Human Rights
Subtitle: Human Rights Between Morality, Law, and Politics
Type: Summer Course
Institution: Inter-University Centre Dubrovnik
Location: Dubrovnik (Croatia)
Date: 31.8.–4.9.2020
Deadline: 15.4.2020
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Course Description
"Human rights are universal, egalitarian, and categorical and refer
to fundamental interests of individual human beings. They are
historical responses to particularly grave experiences of injustice
and threats; they are declared by political actors and
institutionalized in legal orders. Regarding their normative
implications, they are morally justifiable. Hence, they entail
political, legal, and moral dimensions which stand in complex
relations towards each other yet cannot be reduced to one of
them" (Georg Lohmann).
Georg Lohmann is the founding figure of our course "The Diversity of
Human Rights" and its spiritus rector since almost twenty years. As
the title he gave to the course already indicates, Lohmann rejects
any reductionist approach of human rights not only concerning their
content but also with regard to the different disciplinary
perspectives we need to study them appropriately. He is convinced
that the different types or generations of human rights - civil,
political, social and cultural rights - also reflect their complex
nature as morally justified, politically interpreted and legally
enforced claims of individuals.
With this year's topic we directly address Lohmann's central research
topic and thus want to honor our colleague and friend as a
distinguished human rights scholar. Based on the conviction that
recognition in science and philosophy shall take the form of
argumentative exchange, we invite human rights scholars from
different disciplines and schools of thought to contribute to this
conference and to present papers on the complex relations between
morality, law, and politics. Welcome are contributions which either
discuss Lohmann's research directly or take a different stance on the
fundamental issues regarding our topic.
Examples of relevant questions could be: Is a naturalistic theory,
according to which we have human rights simply in virtue of being
human, appropriate to capture the nature of human rights? Or should
we favor some political or practice-dependent conception instead? Are
human rights claims hold exclusively against states of state-like
political institutions, or are other agents also bound by human
rights obligations? Is a state-centered approach of human rights
still the prevailing opinion in International Law? Is the
constitutionalization of international law still a realist utopia
despite the recent backlash against globalization and multilateral
forms of cooperation? Do human rights necessarily include a right to
democratic governance? Can Habermas' thesis of a co-originality of
human rights and democracy be defended against liberal and republican
alternatives? Is there a way to reconcile the universality of human
rights with the particularity of rights to citizenship and of the
specific experiences that give rise to concrete human rights claims?
The annual course "The Diversity of Human Rights" addresses different
problems within the human rights discourse. The participants come
from various countries and bring in different disciplinary
competences relevant for human rights theory and practice. The course
aims at an interdisciplinary debate, especially between philosophy,
jurisprudence, and political science. Furthermore, the course intends
to establish a dialogue between academic researchers and human rights
activists from the region.
The organizers invite researchers as well as human rights activists
coming from all fields and disciplines, to send in abstracts that
deal with some of the problems and tensions indicated above. From the
abstract, the relation to the course's topic should emerge clearly.
The course will give room for the presentation of papers and will
include workshops especially designed for students and young
researchers to present their work in progress. Each director will
invite excellent students to participate in the course.
The course language is English.
The course fee paid to the Inter-University Centre will be around
50,- Euro.
Deadline: April 15, 2020
Email: arnd.pollm...@berlin.de or bernd.lad...@fu-berlin.de
Organizers
Prof. Dr. Elvio Baccarini, University of Rijeka
Prof. Dr. Bernd Ladwig, Free University Berlin
Prof. a.D. Dr. Georg Lohmann, University of Magdeburg
Dr. Ana Matan, University of Zagreb
Prof. Dr. Corinna Mieth, University of Bochum
Prof. Dr. Christian Neuhäuser, University of Dortmund
Prof. Dr. Arnd Pollmann, Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Arnd Pollmann
Alice Salomon Hochschule Berlin
Email: arnd.pollm...@berlin.de
Prof. Dr. Bernd Ladwig
Free University Berlin
Email: bernd.lad...@fu-berlin.de
