Comentario: La Declaración del Punta del Este sobre Dignidad Humana para todos en todo lugar

Ana María Celis Brunet is una Profesora Permanente de la Facultad de Derecho de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile y dirige el Centro UC Derecho y Religión.

En octubre de 2021, gracias al liderzago de ICLRS, nos reunimos cuatro países del Cono Sur— Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay y Chile—en un Foro acerca de dignidad humana y libertad religiosa. Parece particularmente importante dedicar un tiempo a la reflexión sobre la dignidad humana para todos y en todo lugar que corresponde al título de la Declaración del Punta del Este del año 2018.

La Declaración constituye la consolidación de la reflexión de un grupo de personas, gracias a las conversaciones motivadas por Jan Figel—anterior representante de libertad religiosa para los países no europeos de la Unión Europea—con el apoyo del ICLRS.  En ella, se aprovechó de fundamentar y desarrollar mejor la libertad religiosa como un derecho humano fundamental, a propósito de los setenta años de la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos enfatizando la perspectiva de la dignidad humana.

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Our “Kairos” Moment: The G20 and the Challenge of Immunizing the World

Brett G. ScharffsBrett G. Scharffs is Rex E. Lee Chair, Professor of Law, and Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

This post is adapted from a presentation at the G20 Interfaith Forum held in Bologna, Italy on September 13, 2021. The Panel, “A ‘Kairos’ Moment: Accountability to Address Inequalities” was co-chaired by Stefano Fassino, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, Georgetown University. The other speakers were Rajeev Bhargava, Director of the Parekh Institute of Indian Thought at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi; Arntraud Hartman, Professor of Development Economics, SAIS Europe John Hopkins University in Bologna; Eric LeCompte, Executive Director of Jubilee USA Network; and Jonatas Machado, Faculty of Law at the University of Coimbra.

I’m grateful for the framing of today’s discussion, a “Kairos” moment addressing inequalities. As Stefano Fassina explained, Kairos is a Greek term that refers to a unique and unusual opportunity. Our Kairos moment is shaped by the coronavirus crisis. And I believe it is a unique opportunity as illustrated by Professor Katherine Marshall’s framing this with the assignment she gave her students at Georgetown University. She asked them to write a letter to their grandchildren describing what they experienced and how they responded to the pandemic.

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Christianity, Human Rights, and Dignity: Squaring the Triangle

Brett G. Scharffs
Brett G. Scharffs

Brett G. Scharffs is Rex E. Lee Chair, Professor of Law, and Director of the International Center for Law and Religion Studies, J. Reuben Clark Law School, Brigham Young University

Andrea Pin is Associate Professor of Comparative Public Law, University of Padua, and Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law & Religion Emory University

Andrea Pin

Dmytro Vovk is Director of the Centre for the Rule of Law and Religion Studies, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University (Ukraine) and co-editor of Talk About: Law and Religion

This blogpost is modified from Scharffs, Pin, and Vovk’s Introduction to “Human Dignity and Human Rights—Christian Perspectives and Practices: A Focus on Constitutional and International Law,” in a special issue of the BYU Law Review.

Dmytro Vovk

Introduction

The relationship between Christianity and human rights is a matter of deep controversy, drawing the attention of theologians, historians, lawyers, and philosophers alike. The historical connections between various denominations of Christianity and human rights and the dialectics between Christianity and human rights are matters of endless academic debates. How much contemporary narratives of rights are owed to Christianity, what Christianity has borrowed from nonreligious modern and post-modern thinkers, the extent to which the contemporary language of rights clash with Christian values, and the theoretical foundations of such clashes keep scholars busy.

The topic, however, is all but confined to theoreticians. How Christianity understands or ought to understand rights is often discussed within legal and political circles. The public role of Christianity and Christians in contemporary societies surfaces whenever a policy that touches upon Christian values is discussed. Parliaments and courts, especially in countries born out of Christianity, are often busy trying to reconcile religious freedom claims put forward by Christians with rights that contradict Christian morality.

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