Demographic panics and the defence of human rights, chaired by Professor Jo Shaw

What might a truly global mobilisation look like for migrants' rights, women’s rights and reproductive rights? - delivered by Prof Shalini Randeria

The decades-long ascendancy and triumphant march of human rights since 1948, culminating in the long decade of global liberal consensus following 1989, would suggest that these rights should have by now gained currency as self-evident and irreversible. Yet, it would be, at best, naïve, at worst, dangerous to succumb to this illusion of irreversibility and universal acceptance. There are many direct challenges and violations, which, when taken together, can give a sense of human rights in retreat. Human rights may also be the subject of rhetorical ruses and ideological trickery, with governors demagogically claiming continued commitment to the core values of human rights that they undermine.

While much has been said about the causes and consequences of such hard and soft challenges to human rights, this talk highlights a structural feature that often receives short shrift in contemporary debates: the role of demography. The event will also investigate two interlinked facets. First, majoritarian electoral politics, in which regimes seek to draw legitimacy based on the claim to speak in the name of the “pure” or “real” people, coupled with whipping up historical or current ethno-nationalist grievances against minorities and migrants. Second, demographic panics that are used to curtail women’s rights and reproductive autonomy in the name of an existential threat to the nation, couched in a rhetoric of demographic security. Together, these not only result in a range of rights violations, but also justify them as necessary to ensure continued national survival.

At the same time, we also see how human rights have been renewed in the face of these demography-based challenges: the courage of Iranian women leading the movement for freedom and bodily autonomy, or the resistance of Afghan women continuing to insist on their right to education. Just as the demographic challenges to human rights span the Global North and South, so do efforts to counteract them. What, then, might a truly global mobilisation look like for migrants' rights, women’s rights and reproductive rights?

 

 

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