Human Rights Under Pressure

Six people are standing next to each other on a stage. On the left side in the background is a roll-up banner with the words “Leibniz Association” and on the right are the flags of Ukraine, Europe, and Germany.

Photo: Re­presenta­tion of the State of Hessen to the EU/Elio Germani

TraCe was a guest at the Crisis Talks Series in Brussels

On No­vember 6, TraCe was a guest at the “Crisis Talks” series at the Re­presenta­tion of the State of Hessen to the EU. The topic of the panel dis­cussion was “Human rights under pressure: How can the EU strengthen civil society engage­ment in times of global power shifts?”. Jonas Wolff gave the key­note speech and la­ter also partici­pated in the panel dis­cussion.

Parinas Parhisi, Head of Unit Fundamental Issues at the Representation of the State of Hessen to the EU, welcomed the participants to the event.

Jonas Wolff began his key­note speech by high­lighting the commit­ment of this year’s Hessian Peace Prize winner. Jani Silva, a small­holder far­mer from Colom­bia, has been fighting for the rights and self-organization of her local com­munity for over 40 years – and has been tar­get of constant death threats as a re­sult. Jani Silva’s situation is exem­plary for many others: but it is not only death threats, other forms of vio­lence also contri­bute to the immense pressure on civil society engage­ment world­wide. In addition, the pro­tection of human rights and environ­mental de­fenders is closely inter­twined with Euro­pean structures, consumption patterns, and supply chains. At the same time, global power shifts are weakening the EU’s inter­national hu­man rights efforts.

During the panel dis­cussion, Lukas Mandl, Member of the Euro­pean Parlia­ment, empha­sized the need to re­duce bureau­cracy in order to ensure the effective­ness of hu­man rights efforts. He also addressed the issues of eco­nomy and security: On­ly a strong Europe can defend its own values to the out­side world. 

The co­herence of exis­ting EU hu­man rights poli­cies was the sub­ject of the work­shop on civil society engage­ment and vio­lence which took place right be­fore to the panel discussion. Tina Cramer shared in­sights from the dialogue-based for­mat with partici­pants from research, civil society, and politics ex­­changed views on spe­cific forms of vio­lence and threats to civil society actors, as well as on the scope for political action.

The panel dis­cussion, mo­derated by Ralph Sina, was rounded off by ques­tions from the au­dience, which under­lined the rele­vance of the topic and also high­lighted the contested situation of human rights within Europe itself. The event brought together nearly one hundred people from various fields in Brussels.

About the event series: In the “Crisis Talks” series, the Leibniz Research Network “Environmental Crisis - Crisis Environments (CrisEn)”, co­ordinated by the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, to­gether with the Research Alliance “Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt and the Hessian State Re­presentation in Brussels, explores the question of how Europe should deal with its current and past crises in order to use them productively.

Further reading:

  • Albarracín, Juan/Karolczak, Rodrigo Moura/Wolff, Jonas (2025): Violence against Social Activists in the Brazilian Amazon: The Role of Deforestation. TraCe Policy Brief No. 10, 28.08.2025, DOI: 10.48809/PRIFTraCePB2510.
  • Albarracín, Juan/Wolff, Jonas (2024): Targeted Violence Against Social Activists. Characteristics, Causes, and Transformations. Frankfurt/Main, TraCe Working Paper No. 3., DOI: 10.48809/PRIFTraCeWP2403.