“The Central and Eastern European Chapter of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) is pleased to invite submissions to its 2025 annual conference taking place at the ELTE Law School (ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Law), Budapest, Hungary. The conference is convened by Bernadette Somody, Zoltán Pozsár-Szentmiklósy, Gábor Kajtár, Krisztina Rozsnyai, Barbara Havelková and Silvia Şuteu and will take place on 29–30 May, 2025.
Conference theme
The autonomy of the individual is a core concept in many, interrelated scientific fields. In law, it is a key aspect of the individual’s private sphere to be protected and also of their capacity to make decisions that have legal effects. In public law, the question of decision-making capacity is linked to the exercise of fundamental and procedural rights, while it is the duty of the states and supranational organs to recognize and respect the decisions of individuals and their communities in a meaningful way.
While the autonomy of persons is directly linked to the right to self-determination and human dignity and therefore requires strong protection, in the case of certain groups of persons (e.g., children, persons living with cognitive disabilities), the actual ability to exercise and enforce their rights may be hindered. In the case of groups of persons (communities, organizations), the expression of their collective autonomy and identity is a cornerstone of high-quality democracy as well. ‘New challengers’ (e.g., future generations, nature, artificial intelligence) also appear in legal disputes challenging the obligations of states and the international community in relation to these specific entities, and indirectly, to individuals.
Papers are invited to address the conference theme from a variety of perspectives, including administrative law, constitutional law, human rights law, and public international law. Topics explored may include (but are certainly not limited to) the following:
- Doctrinal approaches focusing on the concept of legal capacity to exercise rights and their relation to individual autonomy in the case of different right holders;
- Institutional safeguards and proceedings available at the national or supranational level designed to protect individual autonomy and its manifestations;
- Obstacles and particular guarantees related to the manifestation of individual autonomy in legal proceedings in the case of vulnerable groups of persons (e.g., children, persons with disabilities, ethnic, religious or sexual minorities);
- The protection of bodily autonomy, such as in reproductive health matters and as a corollary to privacy rights;
- Questions raised by ‘new challengers’ (e.g. future generations, nature, artificial intelligence) in national and supranational fora;
- The role of the autonomous individual in the functioning of democracy, classical and new participatory democratic procedures, and the interplay between autonomy and the quality of democracy;
- The protection and limitation of individual autonomy in emergencies, especially in the Central and Eastern European region.”
Source and more info: https://www.ajk.elte.hu/en/content/individual-autonomy-fundamental-rights-and-institutional-safeguards.t.6647
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