Rights at risk: the 2021 report of the Observatory on the Universality of Rights

The Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs) has published the Trends Report of 2021, presenting a complex picture in which different networks of actors, antagonists to human rights, are evolving and exerting a great influence in the domestic and international political arena. As well as analysis of key anti-rights actors, discourses, strategies, and impacts, the report features inspiring short stories of feminist action, and knowledge-building exercises to help strengthen our collective resistance.

The report is divided into six chapters, which concern respectively: the promotion of women's rights in the perspective of a feminist agenda against any system of oppression; analysis of the context within which these "anti-rights" actors move, driven by ultra-nationalism, corporate power and repression; analysis of the narrative strategies used in the political attempt to deconstruct rights, such as arguments related to religion, culture and tradition to oppose the right to abortion; analysis of the "anti-rights" actors and their interconnections with strategic areas and issues; analysis of the strategies adopted to delegitimise human rights from an institutional point of view; and assessment of the antagonistic tendencies to human rights in the context of regional human rights systems.

The Observatory on the Universality of Rights (OURs) is a collaborative project that aims to monitor, analyse, share information and do collaborative advocacy on these anti-rights initiatives threatening international and regional human rights systems. Grounded in a feminist framework, the OURs initiative works across regions, issues, and human rights spaces towards the advancement of social justice.