The conference will bring together MEPs, European Commissioners, Nobel Peace Prize recipients, Sakharov Prize laureates, representatives of international organisations, academia and stakeholders. They will discuss a variety of topics related to the global situation for human rights across three main panels. The conference is jointly organised by the European Parliament and the Global Campus of Human Rights. It will take place at the Monastery of San Nicolò in Venice and on Parliament’s premises in Brussels, as well as remotely.

Participants will hear interventions from, among others, European Parliament President David Sassoli, the President of the Global Campus of Human Rights Veronica Gomez, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, the Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnès Callamard and Denis Mukwege, Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 2018 and Sakharov Prize laureate in 2014. Prominent MEPs in the human rights field, including the Chair and several Members of Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and two Parliament Vice-Presidents, will also actively take part.

Due diligence, global accountability, responding to human rights violationsThe panels will explore how EU legislation on due diligence can make corporations and business more responsive to human rights violations, how international justice can help ensure global accountability, and what challenges a values-based foreign policy faces when addressing human rights and global democracy issues.

The conference will be wrapped up by the performance “White torture” by Venezuelan Sakharov Prize laureate Lorent Saleh, which is based on his experience as a prisoner in ‘La Tumba’, the Venezuelan secret service prison.