Responsibility in a Global Age

We invite you to submit papers for the Conference “Responsibility in a Global Age”, which will be held on May 31 - June 1, 2007 in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Background

The conference is organized by the Regional Facilitators Group of the Charter of Human Responsibilities ( http://www.charter-human-responsibilities.net ) within the framework of the Charter project in Georgia and in conjunction with the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy - RVP

Topic areas of the conference include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Relation of Rights to Responsibilities
2. Public Administration as Public Service
3. Responsibility and Education

Planned highlights of the conference include presentations of the research papers, panel discussions, including workshop/discussion of the Charter of Human Responsibilities.

Refereed proceedings will be published in English by the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy in Washington DC, USA.

IMPORTANT DATES:

April 1, 2007 – Paper submission deadline
April 10, 2007 – Notification of acceptance
May 31/June 1, 2007 – International Conference

Completed and original research papers of not more than 20 pages must be submitted electronically to the conference E-mail:
responsibilityconference TLU yahoo.com.
Submitted papers will undergo a peer review process. Papers must be uploaded in either Microsoft Word or PDF format.

For any questions and queries please contact Dr. Tinatin Bochorishvili
Cell phone: 877 46 58 60
Email: tinab TLU access.sanet.ge

Background

Human rights refer to the concept of human beings as having universal natural rights, or status, regardless of legal jurisdiction or other factors, such as ethnicity, nationality, and sex. Human rights are closely linked to human responsibilities and both aim at human dignity. However, it generally turns out that more attention is drawn to human rights, while responsibilities remain “in the shadow”.

At the end of World War II the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights listed 28 rights in order to protect the individual from the overbearing power of the totalitarian state. This continued the adversarial Western tradition of the British “Magna Carta,” the French “Human Rights” and the American “Bill of Rights”. Only article 29 of the Bill spoke of responsibilities.

International life is still underpinned mainly by two pillars: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which focuses on the dignity of individuals and on the defence of their rights, and the Charter of the United Nations, which focuses on peace and development. These two documents have been a framework for undeniable progress in the organisation of international relations. But the last fifty years have seen radical global changes. Humankind now confronts new challenges and each of us must take up his or her responsibilities at both the individual and the collective level.

The more freedom, access to information, knowledge, wealth and power someone has, the more capacity that person has for exercising responsibilities, and the greater is that person’s duty to account for his or her actions. Responsibilities are proportionate to the possibilities open to each of us. But every human being has the capacity to assume responsibility.

The term often refers to a system of principles and judgments shared by cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs. These concepts and beliefs are often generalized and codified by a culture or group, and thus serve to regulate the behavior of its members.

But rights imply duties and in an individualistic culture it has been difficult, beyond the negative duty not to harm one’s neighbor, to identify the corresponding subject of such positive duties as the provision of an education or of a job. Exclusive emphasis upon rights without social development leads rapidly not to the protection and promotion of persons and peoples but to their endangerment.

Moreover, as we enter upon a global age, it becomes obvious that most of the world’s civilizations are constructed in terms, not of the rights of disparate individuals, but of responsibilities in social units. These begin from the family and extend outward to one’s community, village, nation and civilization - which Huntington terms “the largest we” – and beyond to the global whole.

Hence, both from within and from without the usual discussion of rights is in need of being expanded to include the responsibilities of the person to the social wholes and of the social wholes to the unique person.