Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast

In this episode, our host Iman is joined by special guest Tarah Demant and panellist Tess Hargarten to discuss the impact of Western hegemony on modern human rights and the development of human rights organizations worldwide. This topic is especially relevant at the current moment, when multiple contentious wars are raging with more and more human rights violations coming to light.

Who are human rights for? Where is the 'human' in 'human rights'? What have we learned about human rights conceptually, as well as in practice, over the last 75 years? In this brief first episode, our host Iman introduces our theme for this season, and gives an overview of the questions we seek to probe while reflecting on the 75 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In episode 9 Declarations host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panellist Aimee Hobley and guest speaker Kristin Hughes. Their discussion explores the potential human rights challenges raised by the ongoing green transition. Kristin offers insight and expertise on how the multistakeholder green transition can mitigate against the potential threats created by rare earth mining and resource insecurity, and how upscaling a circular economy can be part of the solution. In order to avoid repeating the ecological and humanitarian injustices of the fossil fuel revolution, human rights need to be at the forefront of a just renewable energy transition and global climate change response.

In this episode of Declarations, Neema Jayasinghe and panellist Isabella Todini sit down with Dr. Lorena Gazzotti, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and Vice President of the Cambridge branch of the University and Colleges Union (UCU) to discuss the right to strike, why lectures across the UK have been striking this year, and why urgent action is needed. We focus on lecture strikes and the marking boycott taking place at present and discuss what the implications of continued industrial action will be for students and for teaching staff. Dr. Gazzotti offers inspiring words on why workers should join unions, and together we envision what the future of higher education could look like – if the right action is taken as soon as possible.

In our seventh episode, host Neema Jayasinghe joins panellist Yasmin Homer to discuss the work of women peacebuilders with guests Eva Tabbasam (GAPS UK) and Andrea Filippi (PeaceWomen Across the Globe). We discuss the importance of fostering and protecting civil society networks in peacetime and wartime, the challenges of political will, and how the Women, Peace, Security Agenda needs to expand its feminist focus through a more inclusive intersectionality. With insights from GAPS UK's work in Afghanistan and PeaceWomen Across the Globe’s networks between Columbia, Nepal and the Philippines, this episode crosses local, national, and international borders in a timely conversation about conflict resolution and representation.  

In our sixth episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by previous podcast host and panellist, Dr Maryam Tanwir. With special guest, Professor Sam Vaknin, the episode unpacks discourses related to the psychology of personal border violations in mental abuse. The conversation questions how borders and boundaries are not only demarcated, violated, or transgressed in global politics, but also at the level of the personal. Here, physical or mental abuse is a form of structured aggression, and can be surreptitious, coercive, or disguised in a myriad of ways. Invariably, it involves the violation of our borders and boundaries - both personal and societal. In this episode, we explore these various levels of abuse and their psychological implications.