Human Rights Today
25 May 2010
An international conference on human rights entitled ‘Human Rights Today: Foundations and Politics’ will be held on June 17 and 18, 2010.
As a crucial ‘normative order’ of modernity, human rights are among the principal concerns of the Cluster of Excellence. Since the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and as a reaction to the ‘barbarous acts’ committed by the totalitarian dictatorships, human richts have evolved into the justification narrative of political orders par excellence. At the same time, controversy rages not just over the substantive definition of human rights, but also over how they should be justified: How are they related to ‘strong’ – for instance, religious – convictions? How can human rights, as a shared normative orientation, be reconciled with cultural difference? How can the autonomy of the political be connected with the idea of human rights?
The goal of the conference is to explore the current state of affairs in the theory and politics of human rights through an examination of these difficult tensions. To this end, we have invited internationally renowned researchers to lecture on and discuss four topics: Charles Beitz (Princeton) and John Tasioulas (Oxford) will address the question of the normative justifiability of human rights. Susanne Baer (Berlin) and Hans Joas (Erfurt) will examine the relation between religion and human rights. Abdullahi Ahmes An-Na’im (Emory) and Seyla Benhabib (Yale) will explore the issue of the intercultural validity of human rights. Finally, Étienne Balibar (Paris) and Costas Douzinas (London) will address the question of the relation between political practice and human rights.
The conference keynote lecture will be delivered by Jürgen Habermas on the topic ‘Menschenwürde als Quelle des moralischen Mehrwerts der Menschenrechte’ (Human Dignity As the Source of the Moral Surplus Value of Human Rights). The keynote lecture will take place on Thursday, June 17 at 8:15 PM in Hörsaal 2 of the Hörsaalzentrum on the Westend Campus.
Further information: here
