Reasons to be hopeful with human rights

On May 20, the conference “South America and Human Rights: Reasons for Hope” was held, organized by the Politics and Human Rights Network of the University of Azuay.

The guest was Kathryn Sikkink, professor of Human Rights Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (Harvard University) and specialist in international norms and institutions, transnational defense networks, impact of human rights norms and policies, and transnational justice.

Sikkink is the author of several books and this Thursday she presented her most recent work: "Reasons for Hope: The legitimacy and effectiveness of human rights for the future."

The presenter, PhD at Columbia University, is a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the editorial committee of the American International Organization for the Review of Political Science; He has served at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and at the Council on Foreign Relations.

To start the event, the rector of the University of Azuay, Francisco Salgado, welcomed and thanked all the teachers that make up the Network for the work done.

Later, the speaker mentioned that she wrote her last book before the pandemic and that “it was something that she really wanted to share with the public and with academics in Latin America; that is why I had his translation into Spanish almost immediately ”.

The author added that the work emphasizes the history of Latin America and its contributions to the international protection of people's rights, since there is a general idea that human rights come exclusively from the north, from countries such as the United States and the nations of Western Europe.

Sikkink revealed that he had written a work on the reasons for hope "because in recent years we are inundated with a series of very pessimistic books about the legitimacy and effectiveness of human rights movements in the world."

UDA Correspondent