Connecticut/Baden-Württemberg Human Rights Research Consortium

Human Rights in the Balance: Safeguarding Social and Environmental Sustainability

17-18 June 2025

Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), Albertstraße 19, 79104 Freiburg, Germany

Contact: Laura Tribess laura.tribess@jura.uni-freiburg.de

 

On the occasion of its 4th conference, the Connecticut/Baden-Württemberg Human Rights Research Consortium (HRRC) invites its members to gather in person for a two-day conference aimed at grappling with the topic “Human Rights in the Balance: Safeguarding Social and Environmental Sustainability”.

Safeguarding human rights is a perennial challenge, rendered more difficult by growing social polarization, widening inequality, new technological developments, and a deepening environmental crisis. Human rights can inform our understanding of these issues and shape our path toward action to address them. This idea of a human-rights based approach is central also to the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) launched in 2015 and to be achieved by 2030, which are meant to be a “universal call to action” to improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere.

Acknowledging that human rights are essential to achieving sustainable development, the conference aims to address the following themes:

• The multiple dimensions of sustainable development and human rights: social, economic, and environmental
• “Leaving no one behind” and how human rights function in an unequal world
• The concepts of individual and collective human rights, and their role in paving the way for a sustainable future
• Emerging technologies as a source for good (or bad) in the fulfillment of human rights 
• Pathways for the participation of all nations, all peoples, and all segments of society in decision-making towards sustainable development

 

Call for proposals
Conference submissions by HRRC members are welcomed in the form of

•     Individual paper proposals on topics related to the conference themes
•     Panel proposals on conference theme(s)

The deadline for all proposals is 1 December 2024.

Proposals for individual papers shall be submitted in the form of an abstract of no more than 200 words. Panel proposals shall contain a list of panelists (to include 3 to 4 HRRC members) as well as a suggestion for a panel title, accompanied by a description of the panel of no more than 150 words and abstracts for each individual panelist of no more than 100 words.

Click here for more details and instructions on how to submit a proposal. 

 

Hosts

HRRC Co-Directors

Ralf von den Hoff (FRIAS, University of Freiburg), Silja Voeneky (University of Freiburg), Sebastian Wogenstein (University of Connecticut), Shareen Hertel (University of Connecticut)

Event coordinator

Laura Tribess (FRIAS, University of Freiburg)