Call for Blogs | The Human Rights Blog

ABOUT THE CENTRE FOR ADVANCED STUDIES IN HUMAN RIGHTS  

The Centre for Advanced Studies in Human Rights (‘CASIHR’) is a research centre under the aegis of Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law, Punjab. The Centre’s primary objective is to undertake, support and promote advanced study and interdisciplinary research on the emerging trends in human rights and its allied fields.

The CASIHR stating its aims and objectives posits–

“In full recognition of the complex national and international issues involved, the CASIHR intends to approach any study and research from a multi-level and multi-actor perspective. Besides such studies and independent applied research, it ambitiously aims-

1. at creating working documents serving as advice to policy makers on human rights governance and public policy issues; and 
2. to regularly organize conferences, seminars and debates on the relevant topics.” 

ABOUT THE HUMAN RIGHTS BLOG 

The Human Rights Blog is an egalitarian space welcoming original contributions involving critical interdisciplinary research on human rights developments across the world. It aims to initiate and promote dialogue, discussion and discourse between various actors and stakeholders in the field of human rights. It intends to provide an accessible forum for timely, relevant, well-researched, and edited scholarly articles. It is based on a contributor-based model.

III. ABOUT THE THEME 

The right to dissent is one of the most important rights granted to us by the Constitution. This right is intrinsic to the very idea of democracy. However, in recent times we have witnessed attacks on the right to dissent across the world, to curtail the freedom of speech and expression of individuals. The misuse of the provisions of sedition, anti-terror and national security laws has also been witnessed repeatedly, in several nations, that through their overly broad interpretations crack down on this basic right. The misuse of these laws by the law enforcement agencies has even led to curbing journalistic expression and ideological opposition and has had a chilling effect on speech and expression in such nations. Such a dismal situation has only been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic through enacting or invoking specialised laws so as to silence any voice raised in criticism on grounds of spreading fake news or misinformation.

It must be realised that for an all-round growth of a nation, the rights of the populace should be protected and their interests be promoted. It is only through disagreement and dissent that deliberations can be initiated so as to carve out laws and policies that promote the interests of the nation as a whole. The right to disagree and dissent is what prevents a democracy from turning into a police state. Thus it is essential that the views expressed in opposition, through lawful means, be encouraged as they forward the idea of a deliberative democracy.

Therefore, it has become imperative to address this issue from a humanitarian perspective and by means of this special series we seek to initiate and promote discourse on the clampdown on dissent being witnessed around the world.

SUB-THEMES 

1. Evolution of Dissent: A Human Rights Jurisprudence Perspective
2. Dissent and Democracy: Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis?
3. Using National Security Laws to Curb Dissent
4. The Decline into a Police State: The Effects of Arbitrary Use of Force to Suppress Dissent
5. Of the Minority Opinion: The Intersection of the Judiciary and Dissent
6. The Balance between Free Speech and Dissent: The Rights of Media
7. Black Markers and Blacklisting: Censorship and Dissent
8. To Believe or not to Believe: Fake News or Dissent
9. Pixelated Dissent: Dissent in a Digital Age
10. The Future of Dissent: A Post COVID-19 Narrative

The sub-themes are only illustrative and submissions are not restricted to the aforementioned subthemes, provided that they fall within the ambit of the main theme.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

1. The Human Rights Blog invites submissions from students, human right researchers, academicians, practitioners, members of civil society organizations and policymakers.
2. The title of the manuscript should indicate the sub-theme that has been chosen by the author(s).
3. The word limit for the submission shall be 1000-1500 words, accompanied by an abstract of not more than 150 words. The word limit is exclusive of end-notes and abstract.
4. Co-authorship to a maximum of two authors, of the same or different institutions is permissible.
5. Plagiarism is strictly prohibited.
6. Referencing and citations must be put up in the form of in text hyperlinks for internet sources. Endnotes for offline sources shall adhere to any uniform citation format.
7. The body of the manuscript should be in Times New Roman, font size 12 with 1.5 line spacing. The endnotes should be in Times New Roman, font size 10 with single line spacing. The text alignment should be justified.
8. Submissions should include the manuscript in .doc or .docx format. The manuscript should not contain the name of the author or his/ her institutional affiliation or any other identification mark.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE 

Submissions shall only be made through Google Form. The same can be accessed here. Authors are requested to read our Guidelines for Authors and the Editorial Policy before submitting their articles.

The last date of submission is 10th December, 2020 by 11:59 PM IST

VII. CONTACT US

In case of any query, contact us at casihr@rgnul.ac.in.

Website at https://casihrrgnul.wordpress.com/

Call for Blogs HERE 

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