Trends and Counter-Trends in the Development and Protection of Human Rights (a summary of a presentation at the plenary session of the International Scientific Conference "60 Years of the International Covenants on Human Rights: The Significance, Impact, and Evolution of Rights," held by the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences on April 14, 2026)

Abstract

Over the past decade, profound changes of various kinds have simultaneously occurred in the international environment and political systems, political regimes, and their functioning in a significant number of countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americasthat is, on all continents. All of these profound changes have had serious and, naturally, diverse multidirectional consequences for the perception of human rights, attitudes towards them, their normative protection, and practice of human rights. Moreover, they have coincided with the revolutionary restructuring of polities at the international, regional, and national levels under the influence of their technological rearmament, digitalization, robotization, and the routinization of the everyday use of artificial intelligence, distributed ledgers, and breakthrough biotechnologies. This presentation and its journal version examine the most debated, controversial. self-contained, multidirectional trends and countertrends in the development of human rights, their protection, defense, and the practice of observing and violating them.