Call for papers for a panel proposal ICAS 2019 in Leiden

International Convention of Asia Scholars 2019
ICAS 11: July 16 – 19, 2019 in Leiden, Netherlands
 
Call for papers –
Conference Panel: Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific: Challenges and Prospects
Deadline for submission: 21 September 2018
 
This multidisciplinary panel aims to examine various challenges and the prospects of international human rights norms in the Asia-Pacific region, amidst an era of American decline and rising powers. First, the panel examines whether, and if so, how the apparently declining influence of the West as well as the rise of authoritarianism worldwide could impact the legitimacy and effectiveness of transnational human rights networks as well as human rights reforms in the Asia-Pacific region. Second, the panel invites new and radical rethinking of the future of transnational human rights norms — its substantive content, ethical assumptions, as well as its representative global and national institutions. Third, the panel investigates the various types of human rights norms as well as patterns of abuses that are persistent in Asia today and examine which economic, social, historical, and political factors facilitate systemic human rights violations. Fourth, the panel seeks papers that bridge human rights theoretical scholarship with practice-oriented knowledge by analysing various policy strategies, political solutions, human rights advocacies, and transitional justice solutions that have sought to strengthen human rights and political stability within specific Asian countries as well as at the regional level. This panel welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions that address any or several of the aforementioned themes. Papers may undertake a study of a specific Asian country, a comparative study of two or more countries, or a broad transnational overview covering one or two Asian regions. While this panel welcomes all paper proposals that are relevant to those aforementioned themes, the panel particularly encourages contributions that address the following topics that are fully contextualized in the Asia-Pacific as the empirical focus:

• Human rights and the war on drugs
• The rise of authoritarianism
• Case studies of human rights crises
• State repression: extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances
• Electoral violence
• Transnational human rights activism: strategies and challenges
• Asian contributions to the formation of the global human rights regime
• Effectiveness and legitimacy of national human rights institutions
• Inequality and socio-economic rights
• Human rights theories and philosophy from Asia
• Climate change and human rights
• Asian religious traditions and human rights
• Multinational corporations and their impacts to human rights
• Asian literatures and human rights
• Transitional justice and human rights
• Education and human rights
• The rise of China and India and the international human rights regime
• Food security and human rights

Prospective participants may send their abstracts (max. 250 words) and brief bios together in one page (in PDF) to Dr. Salvador Santino Regilme Jr (History and International Studies, Institute for History, Leiden University) <s.s.regilme@hum.leidenuniv.nl> by September 21, 2018.
Depending on the quality and the number of proposals received, several panels may emerge from this call for papers and an academic handbook/edited volume would be considered as a collaborative research project. Paper presenters will be solely responsible for their registration and travel arrangements.
For further information about the conference, please visit: https://icas.asia/