Research activities
The research activities of the Chair have been successively structured by the interests of the two Chairholders to date.
Professor Lehners worked primarily on the history and historiography of human rights, contributing to international debates on the origins and the construction of our conceptions of human rights and human dignity within the Western and wider (inter)cultural contexts.
Professor Harmsen has continued his work on the European Convention on Human Rights and the comparative study of regional human rights instruments, while also seeking to develop a broader body of work addressing the place of fundamental rights in the policy process.
The Chair further is associated with the work of numerous doctoral candidates, with current projects dealing with such topics as the role of NGOs in promoting due diligence initiatives in selected European countries and the problems of judicial reform in Central and Eastern Europe.
75th Anniversary of the
Accession of
Luxembourg to UNESCO
The University of Luxembourg as an international centre for the study of human rights issues
The Chair has also had the opportunity to host major international research conferences, enhancing the reputation of the University of Luxembourg as an international centre for the study of human rights issues. For example, in May 2015, the Chair hosted a three-day conference at the Abbaye de Neumünster on ‘Human Rights – A Process of Cultural Transformation’ that brought together many of the leading contemporary scholars on human rights from across world for a compelling discussion of the current state of the art. More recently, despite the conditions of the pandemic, the Chair joined with other partners in March 2021 to stage an online conference on the theme of ‘Islam and Human Rights: Rethinking Justice and Universalism in a Fragmented World’, which brought together many of the major voices in contemporary debates for exchanges with an international public.