The Gwangju Forum on the Future of Human Rights in Asia will take place on Saturday 16 May 2015 from 14:00-18:00 at the May 18th Memorial Culture Center in Gwangju Metropolitan City. It is a public event and open for whomever wants to attend.
The event is co-organized by the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) and the Asia Democracy Network (ADN) in partnership with May 18 Foundation as part of the Gwangju Asia Forum (GAF) to be held in Gwangju from 16-18 May 2015.
The event aims to formulate lessons learned related to human rights and democracy from the last decades, but also to identify emerging socio-political and economic trends and issues in Asia that could present challenges or opportunities for the human rights and democracy movement in Asia. Eventually, the event will look to imagine a collective vision and explore ways to create more impact in the future.
Some of the questions that will be addressed during the event are:
- What are emerging challenges and opportunities for human rights movement in Asia?
- What are the lessons we have learned from the past decades? What key issues in human rights and democracy do we need to address as priorities in the region?
- What kind of regional human rights and democracy standards and mechanisms are needed to meet these challenges?
- How can an initiative of developing a people’s charter on human rights and democracy in Asia contribute to the future of human rights and democracy mechanisms?
- What is the future of human rights in the region?
Speakers and discussants in the session include:
- Vitit Muntharbhorn, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand,
- Amihan Abueva, former Philippine Representative to the ASEAN Commission for the Protection of Women and Children, Executive Director, Child Rights Network Asia,
- Rafendi Djamin, Indonesian Representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights,
- Francis Lee, Sungkonghoe University, South Korea,
- Tae-ung Baik, University of Hawaii, USA,
- Poenky Indarti, Imparsial, Indonesia,
- Samson Salamat, Center for Human Rights Education, Pakistan,
- Kwak Nohyun, Adviser, Asian NGO Network on National Human Rights Institutions (ANNI),
- Shui Meng Ng, wife/representative of 2015 Gwangju laureate Sombath Somphone, Lao PDR, and
- Henri Tiphagne, Chairperson, FORUM-ASIA.
