On September 24th 2024, in New York, CAFA held the side event Right to Academic Freedom and the advancement of SDGs and Human Rights, in alliance with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Scholars at Risk (SAR), UNESCO, Education International (EI), the Global Student Forum (GSF), the Latin American Social Science Council, the Global Campaign for Education, the Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education (CLACSO) and the Open Society Foundations.
The event, moderated by Camilla Croso, Executive Director of CAFA, addressed and reinforced the importance of academic freedom for the realization of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and the recently approved UN Pact for the Future. We heard outstanding remarks from Farida Shaheed (UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education), David Robinson (EI), Henry D. Wright (GSF), Pablo Vommaro (CLACSO), Lily Gray (UNESCO) and Jesse Levine (SAR).
The presenters underscored that academic freedom is a human right that applies to everyone and that is foundational for sustainable development and the achievement of peace and human rights, including the right to science and human creativity, being as central for the strengthening of democracies as an independent judiciary, a free press, and a thriving civil society. The need to acknowledge the academic community as integral part of human rights defenders was underscored, as well as the importance of recognizing the centrality of students’ voice and agency for transforming legal doctrine into reality – an absolute priority for ensuring all recent legal advances at global and continental level are translated into practice.