KFG conference | Human Rights Between Universalism and Particularism (6-7 June, 2024)

Location: Institut für Zeitgeschichte München - Berlin (Leonrodstraße 46b, München)

The KFG investigates universalist and particularist models of order in European contemporary history from the 1970s to the present. Universalist claims aim to validate universally applicable rules. However, demands for such rules usually grow out of concrete interests. In contrast, particularist models reject any general claim and justify guiding principles that are oriented towards the construction of individual or group-related needs.

In the upcoming conference the KFG will focus on "Human Rights Between Universalism and Particularism": The postulate of human rights became attractive as a concept throughout the world in the 1970s and was a major driver of political protest in the pre-1989 dissident movement. With the democratization of post-communist societies, the issue of human rights seemed to become less important. On the other hand, recourse to human rights formed a decisive element in the universalistic draft of the world order of liberal internationalism that triumphed in 1989–91. At the same time, this policy increasingly met with opposition. Since the 2010s, the EU has been confronted with the serious problem of maintaining a uniform standard of civil rights in Poland and Hungary. The modern authoritarian and populist regimes of East (Central) European countries question the universality of human rights by trying to unmask them as a particular ideology that is directed against traditional family or cultural values.

Conference program

Conference report by Paroma Ghose: https://www.hsozkult.de/conferencereport/id/fdkn-145676?title=human-rights-between-universalism-and-particularism&recno=6&q=&sort=&fq=&total=10130