ICON•S Interest Group on Emerging Rights
About
The advancement of modern, open, and inclusive societies requires scholars to delve deeper into the legal foundations and conceptual frameworks of novel rights or expanded dimensions of traditional rights. In a landscape shaped by cultural, political, economic, environmental, and armed conflict, efforts to integrate new rights and expand existing rights within constitutional and international frameworks must be underpinned by a theory that adequately grounds and conceptualizes these imperatives.
This Interest Group focuses on two main lines of research. The first is primarily theoretical, and involves establishing the foundations and conceptualization of these new rights, as well as exploring new dimensions of traditional rights. The second revolves around applied research, which involves the analysis of these concepts and their specific development in each constitutional, supranational and international context.
Examples of these issues include the constitutional and legislative frameworks necessary to respond to demands and claims formulated in terms of rights; emerging or evolving rights related to citizen participation in public affairs; rights related to spaces for the consolidation of human identity and dignity; expectations regarding the transformation and protection of rights in light of new economic, technological, social and environmental realities; the incorporation of a human rights, gender and intersectionality perspective into the normative system and public policies. It is also of interest to explore the limits of this strategy of rendering agents right-holders in securing legitimate claims to justice. The crux of the matter is to facilitate the delineation of these boundaries.
Members
Upcoming events
ICON•S 2025 Annual Conference titled “At the Crossroads of Public Law: Equality, Climate Emergency, and Democracy in the Digital Era”. July 28-30, 2025. hosted by the University of Brasília (UnB) and jointly organized by the Center for Comparative Constitutional Studies (CECC) and the Constituições: Centro de Constitucionalismo e Comparativismo.
13:45 - 15:15 Monday, 28th July, 2025 - The IGER Panel at the Annual Conference in Madrid will feature four presentations by:
- Magdalena Correa. Universidad del Externado (Colombia): "Emerging Rights: What Are They For?".
- Juan A. Cruz Parcero. Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, UNAM (Mexico): "Human Rights and Neoliberalism".
- André Rufino do Vale. Instituto Brasileiro de Ensino, Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa – IDP Brasília: "Mutations in the rights to information and data protection: new theoretical challenges in the emergence of computer information networks".
- Rubén García Higuera. Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales (Spain): "Internet Access as a Human Right: Justifications, Obligations, and Regulation"
You can follow the session live virtually by registering in advance. Registration.
Past events
ICON•S 2024 Annual Conference on “The Future of Public Law: Resilience, Sustainability, and Artificial Intelligence”. Madrid, Spain, hosted by the IE University Law School on July 8-10, 2024.
14:00 - 15:30 Wednesday, 10th July, 2024 - The IGER session at the Annual Conference in Madrid will feature three presentations by:
- Colleen Sheppard, FR Scott Chair in Public & Constitutional Law at McGill University (Canada);
- Marla Elósegui, Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) and Judge at the European Court of Human Rights; and
- Andrew B. Spalding, Jennifer and Samuel Tarry Research Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Richmond (USA).
ICON•S 2023 Annual Conference on "Islands and Oceans: Public Law in a Plural World". Wellington, New Zealand (July 3-5) hosted by Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington. IGER Inaugural meeting.
Get in touch
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