Music

Music

Music

Music

I'm delighted

to be here today. I'm delighted to exchange with all of you.

I'm delighted to know new colleagues, and thank you so much,

Marcus, for your kind invitation to be part of this local,

regional, global discussion. I don't know the discussion.

I know it's the afternoon session, it's the hora de la fiesta.

I will do my best to be energetic.

So my aim today, now, is to present what I call

the dialectical challenge, which is

at stake for me today in the realm of human rights,

original cause and original commissions, and more specifically,

effectively, in the context of the rise of populism.

And my area of study will be Europe, the Americas, and Africa.

I need to confess right now that if the rise of populism

is huge in Europe, in Latin America, it's huge also in Asia and Africa,

but the backlash within the African human rights system

is not directly at such the consequence of the rise of populism.

For me, it's the consequence of a traditional, classical backlash in the universe

of international public law. It's an important precision.

And also, for my oral presentation, I will not be able to maintain

the coherence of the three comparative approaches in each topic.

So I will pick and choose in each system some important

examples. Just a point.

I know that we all discussed this this morning. What is populism?

I have worked a lot about the subject. I have

re-read the great scholars specialized in populism.

Yasha Munch, Jean-Vernier Muller in German Schola,

Rosenvalon, the French historian,

and all others. For me, there are three

features we all know in the

history and whatever is the continental region.

Since the 19th century until the 20th century.

Three characteristics of populism. The first one is a very well-known one,

the binary worldview, people versus elite, that excludes

the complexity of the real world. The second one

is a mistrusting or even delegitimizing

relation with any critical approach that

fails to comply with the wishes of the people as embodied in the voice

of the leader and of the populist party. It is pluralism

versus sectarianism. And the third one, and this

point has not been able yet pointed out in our discussion,

is a very important point. It is a very particular

relationship with time.

The long term of ordinary politics on the one hand

versus the premise of immediate

results from the populist leaders.