The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a remarkable achievement as it has reflected a consensus among various nations with differing historical, religious, political, and cultural traditions and has presented a vision that repels the excess of both individualism and collectivism and, at the same time. Even though or precisely because of the remarkable achievements of the UDHR, there have been growing disagreements worldwide and especially within the Western world in the last decades as to what human rights are. The wide acceptance of the UDHR has led numerous special-interest groups to capture the moral force and prestige of the human-rights discourse and project for their own purposes. Emerging new and false claims of rights that distort the idea of inalienable rights along with the responsibility that are integral part of those rights, the shrinking role of subsidiarity that undermines the universality of this idea as well as the misconception of the role of national sovereignty all warrant reflection today. The conversation with Thio Li-ann, Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore and Lénárd Sándor, Head of the Center for International at MCC will explore these timely and important dilemmas.

We welcome all those interested!