The Law Faculty of Maastricht University and the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights have the pleasure to organize an online seminar (in two parts) to celebrate the Theo van Boven Human Rights Prize awarded to dr. Eduardo Arenas Catalán.

This seminar will address questions of populism and human rights. Populism has been mostly theorized in juxtaposition to constitutional democracy and international human rights law. Motivated by the need to provide answers to the challenge of far-right and authoritarian forms of populism, this seminar seeks to expand the analysis beyond the better-documented authoritarian forms of populism. Following the work of Bojan Bugaric, this seminar is dedicated to explore progressive and socio-economic forms of populism. In particular, the seminar will discuss whether these forms of populism could be helpful or even necessary to articulate constitutional and democratic alternatives to the far-right. In doing so, the seminar will also explore the potential contributions of the current European project of social citizenship and social rights under international law.