Prague, Charles University, Faculty of Arts, Špork Pallace
September 27th, 2024
The 2020s are marked by an eruption onto the international order of what has long been discussed in national settings and in critical legal and political studies: the crisis of universalism. The full-blown interstate war in Europe and devastating regional conflicts in Middle East and Africa as well as increased super-power tensions have unmasked the fragility of international order. They have put into question the remaining consensus on international law, polarized international institutions in new ways and put pressure international on global flows and on chances crucial cooperation on global climate threats.
These conflicts come at a time when universalism loses its binding force even among its main proponents in the West, and as a reference globally. Most countries from the US, across Europe to Asia, are riven by ideological conflicts where far right, anti-modernist and anti-universalist discourses successfully challenge liberal universalism and where self-serving authoritarianism appears to propose an alternative to universalism and multilateralism even in the West.
Acknowledging the necessity to understand the processes, actors and discourses of the current crisis of universalism, Charles University in Prague invites to a multidisciplinary conference of the project Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building (CZ.02.01.01/00/22 _008/0004595).
The conference aims to address the multiple facets of the crisis of universalism through critically discussing anti-universalist discourses as result of and an illiberal revolt and actual warfare and the rise of illiberal constitutionalism.
Programme
9:45 Opening
10:00 – 12:00 Universalism in question: culture wars
Contemporary value conflicts have structured political cleavages and landscape in most democracies and even non-democratic regimes since at least a decade. The are fought around values, social norms, collective memory and religion but also questions of foreign policy. Since 2022, value conflicts in democracies increasingly reflect actual wars in and around Europe and their direct consequences. As a result, the consensus on the universalism of human rights and international law appears to fall apart. How to understand the impact of external conflicts and internal culture wars?
Speakers
Kristina Stoeckl (LUISS University, online): Not a proxy-culture war: Postsecular Conflicts and Russia‘s War Against Ukraine
Monika Bobako (Poznan University): The war in Gaza, the Shoah legacy and the crisis of universalism. A view from Poland
Attila Melegh (Corvinus University, Budapest): Marketization and migration panic
Chair: Zora Hesová (Charles University)
12:00 – 13:00 Lunch
13:00 – 15:00 Constitutional Evolution in the 21st Century: Bridging Conflict or Fostering Discord?
Constitution-making often unfolds amidst political turmoil, emerging post-conflict, during democratization, or as a response to public discontent. This panel will delve into the challenges posed by these circumstances to constitutional change. Moreover, it will engage in a debate on the conditions under which constitution-making processes can successfully address the problems raised by these difficult contexts.
Speakers
Christina Murray (University of Cape Town & United Nations): Conflict and power: Can constitution making play a role in securing peace?
Nathan Brown (George Washington University): Can One Fix the Car while Driving It? Constitutional Engineering after 2011 in the Arab World
Gabriel Negretto (Carlos III University): Constitutional Replacements in Democracies Under Stress: The Case of Chile in Comparative Perspective
Chair: Tereza Jermanová (Charles University)
