Speakers
1948, Paris in winter. The UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, against the backdrop of two bloody wars. The first time nations across the world agreed, in writing, on the fundamental rights owed to every human being.
Eighty years later, we have forgotten why the declaration was made in the first place. The rights enshrined in that document are no longer treated as fundamental. In a world shaped by profit-driven economies, human value is increasingly measured by productivity and utility alone. The violation of human rights has become unremarkable, treated as a practical feature of modern existence.
This panel brings together advocates across law, academia and activism to examine the historical, economic, and psychological conditions that determine whether people experience human rights as inalienable and foundational. The conversation is as much diagnostic as it is restorative: an attempt to re-anchor rights in human dignity.
After the discussion, there will be an open Q&A.
In collaboration with:
Speakers
Matthias Mahlmann
Matthias Mahlmann is University Professor, and Chair of Philosophy and Theory of Law, Legal Sociology and International Public Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zurich, Switzerland. He completed his studies at Freiburg, Berlin and the London School of Economics. He has held a number of Visiting Professorship positions including at the Central European University, Budapest, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Georgetown University Law Centre, Washington DC, University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Philadelphia; German-Turkish University, Istanbul, and was a Visiting Researcher, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Oxford University and Fellow of Mansfield College. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the National Law School, Bangalore.
Aditya Sondhi
Dr Aditya Sondhi is a Senior Advocate practising before the Supreme Court of India. He has served as Additional Advocate General for the State of Karnataka from April 2016 to April 2018, and has been appointed Amicus Curiae in several matters of public importance. He appears regularly before various High Courts in the country. Dr Sondhi has taught constitutional law, arbitration and professional ethics at the National Law School of India University, from where he graduated in 1998. He has also taught a specially curated credit course, Courts and National Security, and has contributed to the Oxford Handbook on the Indian Constitution. He holds a PhD from Mysore University and has published three books of non-fiction with Penguin (India), including his most recent, Poles Apart, which examines the relationship between military and democracy in India and Pakistan. He also hosts Podcaste, a podcast for conversations around caste.
Dr Sondhi appears in matters of criminal and constitutional law, with a special interest in human rights advocacy. He has appeared pro bono in several death penalty cases before the Supreme Court of India including Munna Pandey v State of Bihar, which lays down cardinal principles of a fair trial. He was invited to appear before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs instituted in connection with criminal law reforms in 2023. He has lectured widely in India, as also in the UK at Oxford University, London School of Economics, SOAS, King’s College London and Bristol University. He has instituted the Beena Sondhi Scholarship for an LLM in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice at SOAS, University of London in memory of his late mother.
Arvind Narrain
Arvind Narrain is a lawyer and writer, currently visiting faculty at the National Law School. He is the author of India’s Undeclared Emergency: Constitutionalism and the Politics of Resistance, and co-editor of Because I Have a Voice: Queer Politics in India and Law Like Love: Queer Perspectives on Law. As part of the legal team challenging Section 377 from the High Court to the Supreme Court, he has been a key voice in India’s queer rights movement.
Maitreyi Krishnan
Maitreyi is an Advocate practicing on the labour side representing workmen and unions. She is the State Secretary AICCTU. Bangalore Secretary, CPI( ML) Liberation. She is also the president of All India Lawyers Association for Justice (AILAJ).
Mrudula Vanangamudi
Mrudula Vanangamudi is a human rights lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum. Her primary focus areas include litigation concerning the rights of gender and sexual minorities, women, institutional discrimination, criminal law, marginalised groups’ land rights, and digital rights.
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