Human Rights, Duties, and Responsibilities: Challenges of Modern Democratic Systems

This session focuses on the relationship between human rights, duties, and responsibilities. Influential thinkers and changemakers saw the intimate connection among them. Gandhi once said: “rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.” The convening’s theme, A Call to Conscience: Defending Human Rights and Freedom, invites us to consider human rights and freedom in relation to the Parliament’s signature document the Global Ethic calling for us to build a culture of tolerance and a life of truthfulness. Gandhi made these principles central to his vision of upliftment of all. These two ethical principles are essential to guide our course toward taking responsibility for fellow human beings. Presenters explore a historical overview of Gandhi’s views on UDHR and show how Gandhi throughout his life fought for securing rights for the marginalized; the Global Ethic and its ethical dimension of rights, duties, and responsibilities through a secular ethical framework; the question of rights and duties through the Dharma paradigm of Hinduism and Jainism; and the religious practices of Egyptian political prisoners in harsh conditions such as sensory isolation, enforced disappearance, and other modes of incarceration.