International Conference "From the Right to Self-determination to the Right to Peace: Human and Peoples’ Rights in the Crisis of Multilateralism", University of Padova, 10-11 November 2025

This international conference aims to explore the intricate and complex relationship between self-determination, peace, and human rights in the current era, marked by rising aggressive nationalism and a return of power politics and armed conflict. 

As global tensions continue escalating and multilateralism is increasingly affected by these trends, the conference aims to examine how the fundamental right to self-determination and other collective rights intersect with the individual and collective aspiration for peace before the current status of international politics and international law. This will also be an opportunity to observe, from an original and crucial angle of inquiry, the 80 the anniversary of the Organisation of the United Nations.

The International Conference is open to the participation of scholars (including Phd students and early career researchers) and human rights practitioners. It will be composed of a plenary session, followed by a set of parallel research panels whose participants will be selected by an international scientific committee through a call for papers, which will be out in June.

The conference tries to contribute to a deeper understanding of human and peoples’ rights and their multilateral frame in the current complex geopolitical landscape and to more enhanced research on these crucial elements of global, transnational and national politics, with the University of Padova at its centre.

The conference is organised by the Human Rights Centre A. Papisca together with the UNESCO Chair Human Rights Democracy and Peace and with the support of the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies of the University of Padova. It contributes from the active collaboration, of the following partner institutes:  the Human Rights Consortium at the University of London, the UNESCO Chair in Human Security and Human Rights at the University of Graz, the School of Global Studies at the University of Goteborg, the Centre for Applied Human Rights at the University of York, the Global Campus of Human Rights (104 world universities with headquarters in Venice) and the Institute of International Studies at the University of Wroclav.