The third conference of the Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe (KFG) on the subject and histories of human rights was held at the Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History (IfZ) between the 6th and 7th of June, 2024. Entitled “Human Rights: Between Universalism and Particularism”, the conference looked at how concepts that were supposed to provide protection and humanity to all peoples of the world became contentious in their formulation and differential application. As ANDREAS WIRSCHING (Munich) remarked in his opening comments, there is no other subject that is being discussed as intensively in terms of universalism as in the case of human rights. Although the Human Rights Charter of 1948 assumed the universalism of the rights it enshrined, the conference made evident that universality is not a static but a dynamic concept. Placed into historical perspective, the Human Rights Charter is an example of a tipping point at which particularistic ideas can generate universal claims. This was the central axis of exploration of the conference, which enabled dialogue between multi-disciplinary scholars working in a global perspective.

The first panel questioned how far human rights may be universal. In the inaugural paper, LAURENCE BURGORGUE-LARSEN (Paris) emphasised that nothing can be taken for granted in the lives of people and institutions, or in the drafting and adoption of legal instruments, and that the universal declaration of human rights is no exception. Drawing from the works of many postcolonial authors, she argued that we must be able to dissociate the universal from Europe’s past presumption of universality, and asked how we can ensure that the universal declaration, adopted at a time when the plurality of voices was not represented at the UN, is transformed into an integrated dialogue wherein these legally enshrined ideals are not an imposition from Europe and the West. ANGELIKA NUSSBERGER (Cologne) reiterated this concern in her paper through a historical examination of the drafting of the Universal Charter of Human Rights, contrasted with the contemporary rhetoric emerging from certain countries, such as Russia, which contest the claim that these are “universal” rights. She argued that Russia’s position demonstrated a tendency towards the “de-universalization” of human rights as an instrumentalization strategy and justification for subsequent human rights and international law violations. Meanwhile, other critical voices from the postcolonial world pointed to the particularism ingrained within the Universal Charter, a result of the selective voices which were involved in its original drafting. They pushed for the adaptation of rights to reflect developments over time, and the progressive evolution, discovery, and recognition of unrepresented or discriminated groups.

The second panel examined the crucial subject of women and human rights, beginning with CLAUDIA KRAFT’s (Vienna) paper on historicizing universal rights in light of women’s rights and various communities of experts. Her particular locus of analysis was the 1st United Nations World Conference on Women in 1975, held in Mexico City. She discussed how, contrary to the expected, unchallenged nature of the transnational universalism of women’s issues, the dialogues were directed instead by a sense of particularism to women in different countries, resultant of their cultural and socioeconomic contexts. Ultimately, these diverging narratives came together, with the resurgence of debates around cultural and social rights occurring peaceably alongside the recognition of a universal pledge of problems faced by women everywhere. Moving from Mexico to Eastern Europe, CELIA DONERT (Cambridge) then presented her paper on official discourses on women’s rights as human rights in East and Central Europe and their development over time. She challenged the interpretation heard in the first panel and argued that the era beginning in the 1970s is more accurately seen as one of multilateralism, as argued by Sandrine Kott. Women as objects of legal doctrine posed an issue echoed in previous papers where women, as humans, were de facto universal, but as a historically discriminated group, were also particular. This posed a challenge to universal and global laws. Moreover, most Soviet states and Latin American countries argued for a more expansive concept of human rights, inclusive of a consideration of social status. These controversial debates were often shaped by both substance and implementation.

The first day was brought to a close with the keynote lecture by FRANK BÖSCH (Potsdam), looking at West Germany’s complicated and controversial relationship with dictatorships and with the charter of human rights in the Adenauer era. In light of a crescendo of contemporary criticism aimed at the German government’s history of diplomatic ties to many dictatorial states in the post-Second World War era, Frank Bösch analysed the political nature of discourses around human rights. He contextualised the seemingly discrete categories of dictatorships with which (West) Germany maintained diplomatic relations, some defined by their postcolonial status (such as Rhodesia and Indonesia), and others by their anti-communist stances (as was the case for Iran until 1979, and South Korea until 1987). Citing examples of other, sometimes competing, external influences on German foreign policy, ranging from non-governmental organisations like Amnesty International to large-scale popular protest, he argued that the German government attempted to maintain a balance between its pledge to the universalism of human rights, and its strategic diplomacy defined largely by the complicated reality of the Cold War era. This resulted in a historically selective commitment to human rights, but one which, he argues, demonstrates an increasing trend, particularly in the post-1970s period.

The second day of the conference began with a three-person panel examining human rights in the communist and post-communist world, with a focus on how, after 1989, there may have been a tendency to overestimate the language of human rights in East and Central European dissent. MICHAL KOPEČEK (Prague) gave the first paper on the political languages of human rights in East and Central Europe. He argued that the post-communist narratives around human rights in this area have been (mis)construed as having a distinctly liberal outlook that fits well with liberal triumphalism, which emanated everywhere in the West after 1989. This line of argument assumes that Eastern and Central European dissidents, despite their different backgrounds and ideas, shared a collective and liberal idea of human, social and political rights. Kopeček argued instead that there was a very wide range of perspectives on what human rights comprised in East and Central Europe, and diverging views on how these interacted or should interact with society, people, and nation. There was no necessarily “uniform” version of human rights in the region, but different types of human rights discourses, coming from different political traditions. This was followed by a paper by CAROLINE VON GALL (Frankfurt am Main) on why constitutional transformation failed in Russia in the post-Soviet era. She argued that Russia was already a strong autocracy, which lent itself to the formulation of the law even after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, she emphasised that ideas did nonetheless play a role in post-1989 constitutional formulations of human rights constructions. Some scholars have argued that the implementation of human rights in the Yeltsin constitution of 1993 was only meant as an entry pass to Western European acceptance, a perfunctory inclusion without actual intention of implementation. Between 2000–2010, the Russian constitutional court implemented decisions of the European Court of Human Rights and garnered attention and a prominent role in the western system. Von Gall’s conclusion was that there was no consistent concept of human rights, but rather, different strains of argumentation and, often, instrumentalization. The final paper on this panel was given by IVAN KISLENKO (Belgorod), and looked at the changing nature of social science structures and research in Russia. He examined this in light of Russia’s policies, particularly the Ukraine war, and its use of postcolonial narratives to challenge the ideas of the “West”. Throughout the 1990s, western models of education were making inroads into Russian systems of education through voluntary participation (for example, in the Bologna process) and collaboration from Russian universities (both state and private). However, since 2017, the Kremlin has referred to the context of the USSR and its links to the global south and reversed this integration process through political discourse, despite Russia’s own relationship with postcolonial narratives being historically complicated. He argued that Russia is involved in “decolonial isolationism”: under the guise of the “sovereignization” of Russian (social) science, there has been a steady erosion of anything associated with Putin’s negative essentialization of the “West”, and a re-focus towards developing countries with a history of anti-colonial struggle.

The final panel looked at the contradictions and ambivalences of European human rights, especially when it comes to migration. AGNES BRESSELAU VON BRESSENSDORF (Munich) gave the first paper, analysing the relationship between human rights and security concerns, particularly since the 1980s, and the United Nations’ attempt to address the large numbers of global refugee emergencies in a more permanent rather than symptomatic manner. These debates were concurrent with debates within the European Union regarding the deepening of the European project, which played a key role in directing the political discussions on refugees. As a result, the UN resolution pushed for the containment of refugee flows rather than their reception and treatment in the place of destination, a reflection of Western European particularism and the regionalization of refugee aid. Two initially contradictory concepts led, under changing global political conditions, to a discourse around humanitarianism that has defined the humanitarian world and remains controversial to date. The conference was then closed by IDA RICHTER (Berlin) who gave a paper on the entanglements between human rights discourses and politics through the case-study of Raoul Wallenberg and the symbolic place he has been accorded in humanitarian histories. Wallenberg’s role in aiding Hungarian Jewish refugees at the end of the Second World War seems, retrospectively, to be self-evident in its centrality to the notions of humanitarianism that govern the world today; however, the narratives around him as a symbol of human rights actions were developed and concretized in the midst of the Cold War and its politics, which is made evident by the CIA’s involvement in pushing forward perspectives on his exceptionalism in the European media. Given that the Holocaust was not a subject of discussion during the drafting of the UN Charter on Human Rights in 1948, what seems self-evident in retrospect, has a dynamic history, which is very effectively captured through the example of how Wallenberg, and his role in history, has been memorialized.

The engaged debates of the conference were brought together in the thoughtful closing remarks made by STEFAN-LUDWIG HOFFMANN (Berkeley). He commented on the interdisciplinary nature of the conference, which generated a good and dynamic dialogue, but also made clear the difference in approaches between scholars and disciplines. Human rights as a basic concept therefore emerges very recently, which is also the reason for its contested nature. There is a plurality of political languages, and it is chaotic and difficult to delineate normative conceptions. What emerges instead are nexuses that are not always intended or expected. There is, so far, no conceptual history of human rights, and the premise for understanding what the basic concept of human rights is that it is always contested, and at the same time, indispensable.

Conference overview:

Andreas Wirsching (Munich) / Angelika Nußberger (Cologne): Welcome and Introduction

Panel 1: Are Human Rights Universal?
Chair: Andreas Wirsching (Munich)

Angelika Nußberger (Cologne): Tendencies of De-Universalizing Human Rights

Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen (Paris): Universalism in Question

Panel 2: Human Rights and Gender Equality
Chair: Kiran Klaus Patel (Munich)

Claudia Kraft (Vienna): The Question of Universalism on the First UN World Conference on Women in Mexico City (1975)

Celia Donert (Cambridge): Taking the State Out of Socialism: Women's Rights in Central and Eastern Europe Before and After 1989

Keynote Lecture

Frank Bösch (Potsdam): Die Deutschen und die Diktaturen. Außenpolitik und Menschenrechte seit der Ära Adenauer (Keynote in German, open to the public)

Panel 3: The Human Rights Discourse in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1970s and 1980s
Chair: Martin Schulze Wessel (Munich)

Michal Kopeček (Prague): Political Languages of Human Rights in East Central European Dissent

Caroline von Gall (Frankfurt am Main): Soviet Theory of Human Rights in the 1970s

Ivan Kislenko (Belgorod): 'Not decolonization but self-isolation' - How the Kremlin's Purported Fight Against 'Neocolonialism' is Destroying Russian Science

Panel 4: Human Rights in International Politics and Commemoration
Chair: Hélène Miard-Delacroix (Paris)

Agnes Bresselau von Bressensdorf (Munich): Between Universalism and Regionalization: Human Rights, Middle Eastern Refugees and Western Europe in the 1980s

Ida Richter (Berlin): Universalistic Rhetoric in the Commemoration of Rescue during the Holocaust: Establishing Raoul Wallenberg as a Human Rights Symbol in the 1980s

Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (Berkeley): Concluding Remarks