Current Challenges for Fundamental Rights and Public Policies

SW 10 Current Challenges for Fundamental Rights and Public Policies

Convenors: Ángeles Ródenas- Yohan Molina Horacio-José Alonso

Contact and information: yohan.molina@ua.es horacio.alonso@ua.es

Presentation

The rapid consolidation and development of new, complex, and potentially dangerous political, economic, and technological phenomena have substantially transformed the problems and challenges faced by European societies. These changes reveal a clear incapacity of legal-political systems to adapt sufficiently to emerging demands concerning the protection of human rights and the design of effective public policies. This workshop aims to address the major challenges associated with these phenomena through theoretical analyses of their causes, nature, and consequences, as well as through the articulation of normative proposals for responding to them. More specifically, the call is structured around three main thematic axes:

A) Challenges to Democratic Governance

This axis invites submissions examining how contemporary threats to democratic governance—such as the resurgence of anti-democratic movements, the judicialization of politics, the politicization of the judiciary, and corruption—undermine democratic development and social stability.

B) Access to Rights and Inequality Gaps

Although many countries formally recognize rights for all citizens, significant disparities persist in their actual enjoyment. This axis welcomes contributions analyzing systemic inequalities, identifying paradigmatic fields where unequal access to rights emerges, and examining the main factors of discrimination, as well as normative proposals aimed at overcoming these challenges.

C) Conflicts Between Technological Development and Fundamental Rights

This axis focuses on analyzing the impact of technological development—particularly artificial intelligence—on fundamental rights, as well as the challenges that public policies face in regulating and responding to these transformations.

Submissions

We invite submissions engaging in theoretical analysis or normative proposals addressing issues related to any of the above thematic axes. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• The ideal of the rule of law and current challenges to human rights and public policies.
• Democracy as a public policy of the European Union.
• Retreats or setbacks in human rights protection.
• Gender parity and the construction of democracy.