The human rights vision of the UDHR is built on certain fundamental principles, which are as valid today as they were sixty years ago. These include accountability, universality, human dignity, security and solidarity. However, the political, economic, social and technological changes of the last half-century have meant that the forces which threaten or enhance these principles in today’s context are very different from the challenges of that era.
HRA seeks to stimulate critical reflection on what these principles mean in the twenty first century, and what threats and opportunities lie ahead for their transformation from rhetoric into reality.
The long-term survival of human rights as an effective and emancipatory discourse driving political and social transformation can by no means be taken for granted. HRA is aimed at ensuring that the UDHR’s 60th birthday does not signal retirement but renewal. It will do so by joining forces with other human rights advocates, activists and academics to undertake some of the intellectual groundwork which can help the human rights movement address head-on some of the tectonic shifts which are challenging the foundations of the human rights paradigm.
In each of these five inter-connected focus areas, HRA explores emerging human rights debates and strategies, shifts in discourses, trends and counter-trends influencing local and international human rights advocacy agendas of the future:
Within each of these areas we work in partnership with advocacy organizations and academic centers to develop and test new approaches to these issues which can help to confront emerging human rights challenges.