Framing Human Rights

In this episode, Ethiopian-American author Maaza Mengiste and Italian artist and photographer Laura Fiorio sit down with ECCHR General Secretary Wolfgang Kaleck. The conversation centers on the colonial history of Italy in Ethiopia. Mengiste talks about the often overlooked role of women in Ethiopia's fight against Italian occupation during World War II, and Italian artist Fiorio talks about her work “My fascist Grandpa.” Both bring their perspectives to contextualize photography and its manifold meaning and ability to hold and tell truths.   © Vittoria Trovato / Laura Fiorio © Nina Subin / Maaza Mengiste

Human rights in times of crises #1 Welcome to ECCHR’s talk series on resistance and concrete utopias. With our conversations, we want to create the necessary platform for actors from all over the world to discuss and advance global human rights struggles. Human rights are a concrete utopia worth defending. But how to defend them needs to be constantly reinvented. As we find ourselves in a time of profound global transitions, human rights actors need to refer to prevailing inequalities and the underpinning social questions. ECCHR initiated an event series that is now available as a podcast to rethink the struggle for and around human rights. Alejandra Ancheita (lawyer, founder of ProDESC, Mexico), Joshua Castellino (executive director, Minority Rights Group International), and Wolfgang Kaleck (ECCHR General Secretary) kick off our talk series Human rights in times of crises. On the basis of Kaleck’s latest book The concrete utopia of human rights: A look back into the future (in German, S. Fischer publishers), our guests discuss how, when faced with a climate crisis, a pandemic, deeply unequal economic models, and authoritarianism, human rights activists can no longer go on with business-as-usual. These unprecedented global transitions are a chance to rethink new strategies and ways forward, and reclaim human rights and their potential for change. For more information, go to: ecchr.eu/human-rights-in-times-of-crises Let’s stay in touch! You want to stay up to date on ECCHR’s cases, events and publications? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Human rights in times of crises #2 Law not only organizes and secures economic profits, it is a crucial factor in creating wealth. Katharina Pistor (author, Columbia Law School) speaks with Guillermo Torres (lawyer, ProDESC), Johan Horst (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) and Miriam Saage-Maaß (ECCHR program director Business and Human Rights) about how corporate power and law are intertwined. Our guests explore how economic and financial law are important factors in creating corporate power, and our legal and political options to restrict this dynamic of growing corporate wealth and power. Can human rights, especially economic and social rights, play a role in insuring our societies become more equitable? Human rights in times of crises is ECCHR’s talk series on resistance and concrete utopias. With our conversations, we want to create the necessary platform for actors from all over the world to discuss and advance global human rights struggles. Human rights are a concrete utopia worth defending. But how to defend them needs to be constantly reinvented. As we find ourselves in a time of profound global transitions, human rights actors need to refer to prevailing inequalities and the underpinning social questions. ECCHR initiated an event series that is now available as a podcast to rethink the struggle for and around human rights. For more information, go to ecchr.eu/human-rights-in-times-of-crises Let’s stay in touch! You want to stay up to date on ECCHR’s cases, events and publications? Subscribe to our newsletter.

Human rights in times of crises #7 Colonialism continues to shape our current social, economic, and political world order to a substantial degree. In a discussion with prominent human rights advocates at this last event of our series, we will bridge different aspects of a larger struggle, encompassing reparations claims for German colonial crimes in Namibia, the legacy of slavery, unfinished decolonization, as well as the vibrant Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. How can human rights law be used to resist and counteract (post)colonial injustices? How are these movements broadening and intensifying their connections to human rights work and networks? In this episode, Sima Luipert (Deputy Chairperson of the Nama Traditional Leaders of Namibia), Vince Warren (Executive Director of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights), and Meena Jagannath (Director of Global Programs at Movement Law Lab based in Florida), take part in a conversation moderated by Wolfgang Kaleck (ECCHR General Secretary). Human rights in times of crises is ECCHR’s talk series on resistance and concrete utopias. With our conversations, we want to create the necessary platform for actors from all over the world to discuss and advance global human rights struggles. Human rights are a concrete utopia worth defending. But how to defend them needs to be constantly reinvented. As we find ourselves in a time of profound global transitions, human rights actors need to refer to prevailing inequalities and the underpinning social questions. ECCHR initiated an event series that is now available as a podcast to rethink the struggle for and around human rights. For more information, go to: ecchr.eu/human-rights-in-times-of-crises Let’s stay in touch! You want to stay up to date on ECCHR’s cases, events and publications? Subscribe to our newsletter.