The international protection of human rights and its current challenges

The campus of the University of Navarra in Madrid spoke about Human Rights. On the international systems and organizations that protect and guarantee them; on the direct justiciability of ESCR (economic, social, cultural and environmental rights); on the protection of rights and freedom of trade; and on the challenges they face. It was during a new edition of the International Human Rights Protection Programwhich took place from January 9 to 13, and which is included in the Study program of the Master's Degree in Human Rights of the School of Law of the University of Navarra.  

"Human rights are one of the keys to understanding the functioning of contemporary legal systems. Since the emergence of the so-called 'conventional state', the influence of human rights on all sectors of law has become increasingly evident". This is stated at presentation of the program. In this sense, the Study program addresses the Universal System of Human Rights Protection, the European System and the Inter-American System. 

The stay in Madrid included lectures by Amaya Úbeda, lawyer at committee de Europa; Pablo Saavedra, secretary of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; and María Carmelina Londoño, professor of International Law at the Universidad de La Sabana. This edition included several seminars with the participation of Eduardo Ferrer McGregor, judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights; Gonzalo Villalta, Full Professor of International Public Law of the University of Navarra; and Mariela Morales Antoniazzi, director of project Ius Constitutionale Commune in Latin America (ICCAL) of the Max Planck Institute.  

The program was completed with visits to the Constitutional Court, the law firm Uría Menéndez and the Pombo Foundation, created within the law firm Gómez Acebo & Pombo with the goal to safeguard and promote human rights and promote values that contribute to the development integral development of the individual.

Butwhat, in the opinion of the experts, are the current and future challenges facing the international protection of human rights? The program closed with a roundtable in which this question was addressed. Professors Úbeda, Saavedra and Londoño, and Juan Cianciardo, Full Professor of Philosophy del Derecho and director of the program; and Ángel Gómez Montoro, Full Professor of Constitutional Law of the University of Navarra.   

Cianciardo proposed during the discussion the existence of a relationship between the concept, the Catalog, the foundation, the interpretation and the protection of human rights. In his view, the treatment of any one of these aspects of the theory of rights has an impact on the treatment of the remaining aspects. He went on to raise as a significant difficulty in reaching a precise concept of human rights their identification with desire. If any desire is a right, then rights cease to make sense as limits to power, as "trump cards in the hands of minorities," he said. Ángel Gómez Montoró introduced in discussion the threat of populisms against the current Rule of Law and freedom of expression and the need to address issues such as cybersecurity, the use of artificial intelligence, algorithms; and the need not so much to generate new rights but to define what are the correlative duties of the already recognized rights.What are the claims that are reconducible or can be included within a fundamental right that already exists, he wondered. 

According to Amaya Úbeda, "Human rights arise as a redoubt of respect for the individual in the face of power . From there, international protection is then developed, which has to lead to making effective this obligation of the State to respect its own limits". According to agreement , "the institutions must be very aware of this role, especially at the international level, and make a special effort in terms of transparency, motivation, reasoning and being at the service of goal for which they have been created". 

Polarizing populisms

According to Pablo Saavedra, the goal of populisms is to be "polarizing":"they seek to take us to extremes, whether left or right, and also create the idea that whoever is not with me is my enemy. If we see the political adversary as the enemy, we are losing the opportunity to build consensus and democracy begins to erode," he warned. Saavedra described populisms as "subjugators" of judicial institutions, causing a climate of tension and distrust in society. He concluded by listing as challenges for the international protection of human rights the study of the relationship between human rights and business, climate change, the care of people, artificial intelligence and the protection of the most vulnerable. 

Finally, María Carmelina Londoño advocated that the institutions for the protection of human rights should address the new issues of society from the point of view of the multidisciplinarity. "The challenge is to bring the culture of human rights to other areas and guarantee its effectiveness. Former vice-minister of foreign affairs of Colombia, she proposed rescuing a robust notion of the person as the axis and meaning of the defense of rights.