Declarations: The Human Rights Podcast

Welcome back to Declarations!In this episode, we’re joined by renowned journalist Kalpana Jain to explore how the media landscape has evolved and how press freedom is shifting across the globe. From the West to South Asia, we unpack the complex forces shaping what gets reported, whose voices are amplified, and how journalism is being redefined today. The media has undergone a seismic shift over the past two decades, technologically, politically, and economically. Today, journalism faces mounting constraints: declining independence, a shrinking space for investigative work, all amid escalating risks for journalists worldwide. At the same time, newsrooms are evolving rapidly to combat the rise of misinformation in an increasingly complex digital environment. About the guest:Kalpana Jain is a senior journalist and currently senior ethics and religion editor at The Conversation US, a global news and commentary-based website.She has covered a wide range of issues both in the U.S. and internationally. She was senior education editor at The Conversation US, before moving into her current role. She worked as a writer and researcher at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School She was part of a small, select team for a flagship program of Harvard Business School researching 50 years of women at HBS.She worked for many years as a reporter and editor at India’s leading national daily, The Times of India. Her reporting played a significant role in elevating public health as an important topic of news coverage. Based on her reporting, she was selected a Nieman Fellow in Global Health Reporting in 2009. She has taught case-writing at Harvard. She has conducted workshops teaching scholars at Harvard Divinity School, Stanford University, on how to write for the general public. She has also conducted such a workshop for religion scholars at the annual conference of American Academy of Religion.She is an alumna of Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Kennedy School. She holds a Master’s in Theological Studies and a Master’s in Public Administration. In 2010, she was awarded William A. Starr fellowship for innovative thinking in journalism and John Kenneth Galbraith Fellowship for outstanding academic and professional achievements at Harvard.Subscribe below for more regular and profound discussions. Connecting practitioners, activists, and students together to dissect the compelling intersections related to human rights and social justice. Share your thoughts using #declarationspodcast Email us at info@declarationspod.com Episode Credits Host: Muhammad Ali Sohail Producer: Muhammad Ali Sohail and Sarah Awan Executive Producer: Sarah AwanPodcast Lead: Shubham Jain Show Notes: Yusan Ghebremeskel Publisher and Communications Manager: Evie Nicholson Editor: Max Parnell

Welcome back to Season 9 of Declarations!This season we are looking at the notion of Human Rights and The Polycrisis.In our first episode, Co-host Ed Parker sits down with Andrew Preston, an acclaimed historianof American foreign relations post 1890, to trace the role of human rights in American protest movements and foreign policy debates, asking whether humanitarian ideals have ever truly guided U.S. decision-making. From campus protests against the Vietnam War to campaigns like Save Darfur, American activists have long invoked the language of human rights topress for change at home and abroad. But has this discourse meaningfully shaped U.S. foreign policy—or has it always taken a backseat to strategic interests?Together, they explore key moments when human rights language surged, examine its retreat in recent years, and consider how American power has influenced—and at times undermined—thebroader global human rights regime. Looking ahead, they ask whether we are witnessing a lasting shift in U.S. foreign policy priorities or simply thelatest chapter in a long cycle of competing values and interests.We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, please check out our last season, available on all podcast platforms, or follow us on social media @DeclarationsPodShare your thoughts using #declarationspodcast Email us at info@declarationspod.com Credits:Host: Ed Parker Producer: Ed Parker and Sarah AwanExecutive Producer: Sarah AwanShow Notes: Yusan GhebremeskelPublisher and Comms Manager: Evie NicholsonEditor: Max Parnell

Join guest host, Dounia, in conversation with Omar Alshogre as they discuss the relationship between activism and human rights in the context of the Syrian revolution. What is the future of the Syrian revolution? Has it fallen into oblivion? Will Syrians ever succeed in getting rid of a regime which has been plaguing the country for more than 50 years?

Join our host, Iman, in conversation with special guests, Uma Chakravarti and Suchitra Vijayan, and our panellist Jigisha Bhattacharya, as they discuss incarceration and its politics in contemporary India, focusing on addressing concerns such as human rights violations, democratic oversight and the silencing of dissident voices.

In this episode of Declarations, our host Iman is joined by special guest Siri Gloppen and panellist Charlotte Abercrombie to discuss global democratic backsliding and its impact on human rights. They evaluate the role of courts in safeguarding human rights and the risks of politicising fundamental freedoms. This episode comes at a crucial period, where democracies appear to be in peril worldwide.

Who are human rights for? Where is the 'human' in 'human rights'? What have we learned about human rights conceptually, as well as in practice, over the last 75 years? In this brief first episode, our host Iman introduces our theme for this season, and gives an overview of the questions we seek to probe while reflecting on the 75 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In this episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panelist Vanessa Dib to discuss developments of lawfare, the power of law being used as a weapon of conflict, with guest Mr. Jason McCue. In this day and age, wars can take place within and outside the traditional confines of borders and boundaries as wars are increasingly started, fought, and ended through lawfare. To better situate the discussion, Mr. Jason McCue will help us explore what lawfare is, how is lawfare is used today, and future developments of it by using the Libyan civil war as a case study.

This episode focuses on assessing the Rwanda Asylum Plan - UK’s most controversial migration policy in recent years. According to the proposal, 99 asylum seekers whose claims were declared “inadmissible” were scheduled to embark on a flight relocating them to Rwanda on the 14th of June 2022. While never enacted, the plan attracted widespread media attention and the criticism of many NGOs fighting for migrants rights. Our guests, Peter Wiliam Walsh and Colin Yeo will discuss the origin of this policy, its problematic nature as well as what could be done in the future to avoid similar mistakes. In our modern society, we expect developed democracies like the United Kingdom to set a positive example when it comes to respecting human rights. So, was this just a policy accident in the UK government’s overly nationalist agenda or is this the beginning of a hostile immigration environment in post-Brexit Britain? Only time will tell.

The Deepfake detection platform Sensity came out with a report in 2019 that 96% of Deepfakes on the internet are pornographic and 90% of those represent women. Deepfakes are a modern form of synthetic media created by two competing AI’s with the goal of replicating hyper-realistic videos, images, and voices. Over the past five years this has led to major concerns of the technology being used to spread mis/disinformation, carry out fraudulent cybercrimes, tamper with human rights evidence, and most importantly in relation to this episode create non-consensual pornography. In this episode, the last of this season of the Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir sat down with panellist Neema Jayasinghe and Henry Adjer who is not only responsible for the Sensity report that came out in 2019 but is also a seasoned expert on the topic of deepfakes and synthetic media. He is currently the head of policy and partnerships at Metaphysic.AI and also co-authored the report ‘Deeptrace: The State of Deepfakes’ while at Sensity. This was the first major report published to map the landscape of deepfakes and found that the overwhelming majority are used in pornography.

In this week’s episode of the Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir sat down with Munizae and Sulema Jahangir to discuss freedom of expression and internet shutdowns in Pakistan, and their implications for human rights in the country. Freedom of expression, attacks on civil society groups, a climate of fear continues to impede media coverage of abuses by both government security forces and militant groups. Journalists who face threats and attacks have increasingly resorted to self-censorship. Media outlets have come under pressure from authorities not to criticize government institutions or the judiciary. In several cases in 2020, government regulatory agencies blocked cable operators and television channels that had aired critical programs. International conferences raising awareness on human rights and promoting initiatives safeguarding human rights (organized by the guests) were mired by technology shutdowns. We explore with our guests the issue, the stakes, and potential solutions.

For Episode 4 of this season’s Declarations podcast, host Maryam Tanwir and panelist Alice Horrell sit down with Karen Schrier, Associate Professor and Founding Director of the Games and Emerging Media program at Marist college, and Florent Maurin, creator of The Pixel Hunt, a video games studio with a focus on reality inspired games, to discuss empathy games.

In this week’s episode, host Maryam Tanwir and panellist Yasmin Homer discuss the role of technology in the securitization of European borders with MEP Patrick Breyer and researcher Ainhoa Ruiz. It was 71 years ago that the 1951 UN Refugee Convention codified the rights of refugees to seek sanctuary and the obligation of states to protect them. In 2015 Angela Merkel famously declared, “Wir schaffen das,” that we can do it. Yet, in 2021, the International Organisation for Migration has described 2021 as the deadliest year for migration routes to and within Europe since 2018. At least 1315 people died on the central Mediterranean crossing, while at least 41 lives were lost at the land border between Turkey and Greece. The creation of a “Fortress Europe” emerges as an issue beyond borders, getting to the heart of what it means to be a citizen in a globalised, technologized world. It combines political, social, and economic interests, with the inclusion of private interests and the development of border technology for “corporate interest.” The question of accountability is at the core: if state policy includes, and can depend, upon the lobbying of private security companies, who are they beholden too? If this technology is produced for commercial interest, can its application be done fairly, without bias, or without profit? Securitisation constructs a constant psychological reality of war, impinging on the rights of those trying to get in the fortress, and those already inside. The only difference between the two is luck of circumstance.