Getting ready for the GC International Student Conference on Just Transition, Bishkek, 17-21 June

From June 17-21, the Global Campus Central Asia Master's Programme in Human Rights and Sustainability (MAHRS) will host the International Student Conference on Just Transition: Conditions for Change in the Global Order at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This event is a revitalised edition of the GC Global Classroom, a flagship research and networking programme for students.

The conference will bring together 25 students from the eight GC regional Master's programmes across Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, South East Europe, the Caucasus, the Arab world, Central Asia and Asia Pacific. These students will join the 2023-24 GC Central Asia cohort marking the first time the OSCE Academy in Bishkek and the MAHRS coordinators hosts this global initiative and welcomes the Global Campus governing bodies in a side event.

Students are currently finalising their papers on processes of transitology in their regions and how these processes respond to the conditions for Global Order, which they will share and discuss during the conference. Dr. Anja Mihr, MAHRS Programme Supervisor and academic coordinator of the Student Conference, explained in a recent interview, “The concept of transitology, coined in 1970 by sociologist Dankwart Rustow, is experiencing a revival. We are witnessing failed statehood and rapid decline after dramatic democratic and governance reforms in the 1990s worldwide. […] Our empirical research today can contribute to pathways of peaceful transitions across all regions of the world, by emphasizing the need for thorough transitional justice processes and education reforms post-regime changes, alongside democratic institution building.”

Within this theoretical framework, students will discuss how civil society engagement, democratic institution building, international human rights, and criminal law can frame societal change and political transition pathways. They will explore the resilience of democratic institutions amid democratic backsliding and consider how transitology and transitional justice can progress during and after times of conflict and repression in different regions of the world.

The conference will start on Monday, June 17, with a keynote address by Prof. Saniya Toktogazieva, Professor of International and Constitutional Law at the American University in Central Asia, on Fundamental and Constitutional Rights in Central Asia. Distinguished guests, including EU Ambassador Marilyn Josefson, Ambassador Alexey Rogov, the OSCE Programme Office in Bishkek, and Kate Walker, Director of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, will welcome the participants.

On Monday afternoon, students will travel to a retreat at Issyk Kul, a saline lake in the western Tianshan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. They will participate in five panels discussing regional perspectives on transitional justice, human rights compliance, and transition challenges. Additionally, they will attend a Master Class on blog writing skills led by Rosie Cowan, lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and former Guardian Ireland and crime correspondent.

We eagerly anticipate the start of this unique program and look forward to the warm welcome from the staff of the 8th GC Master’s Programme, the MAHRS in Central Asia, launched last year in Bishkek.

Check out the programme below and register to the Conference opening and keynote which will be held in hybrid mode on 17 June 2024, 11:30-12:30: https://forms.gle/EspJcMe7SP7HEDkv8