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The third Online School on Human Rights, Rights in Europe: The Risks and Impact of Authoritarianism, closed on 6 October 2026 following six weeks of lectures, discussion and collaborative research.

More than 1,600 people applied to the course this year. Our 40 selected participants came from Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Italy, Ukraine, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Pakistan, the USA, Greece, France, Palestine, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Iran, Portugal, Germany and Morocco.

The School opened with a keynote from Professor Dr. Siobhan Mullally, Established Professor in Human Rights Law and former UN special rapporteur on human trafficking.

Sessions followed on Human Rights and Democratic Backsliding through a Comparative Constitutionalism Approach (Dr. Airė Keturakienė), The Implementation Gap in Realising Human Rights (Dr. Joyce De Coninck), and Accountability in Supranational Systems (Dr. Anne Heinisch). Others covered “Traditional Values” and Gender Rights (Dr. Laura Luciani), Digital Rights in the Era of Post-Truth (Dr. Professor Rashid Gabdulhakov), Migration Flows to Europe (Professor Ciara Smyth), Emergency Governance (Dr. Professor Laima Vaigė), The Appropriation of Human Rights by Authoritarian Regimes (Dr. Professor Elizaveta Gaufman), and The Right to Protest (Dr. Illan rua Wall).

A methodology workshop, led by Dr. Róisín Mulgrew (School Director, ICHR) and Iana Ovsiannikova (School Coordinator), prepared participants to undertake individual and collaborative research. Artist Victoria Lomasko offered a view on Human Rights in the Post-Soviet Space.

In small groups, the School participants developed interdisciplinary projects on a range of topics which they presented during the closing ceremony. Their topics included...

1. Constitutional Backsliding and LGBTQI+ Rights in Russia
2. Beyond the 38th Parallel: Institutional Barriers and the Marginalisation of North Korean Women in South Korea
3. The Framing of “Traditional Values” in State-Aligned Media: a Comparative Study of Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Russia
4. How Germany Punishes Pro-Palestinian Protesters Through Citizenship Revocation
5. Externalisation of Border Control and Protection Against Refoulement
6. Parallels in Suppression: How Liberal and Hybrid Regimes Weaponize “Legal Mimicry” to Bypass Freedom of Assembly Standards
7. Disinformation and LGBTQI+ Rights in Moldova: The Case of Chișinău Pride 2025
8. The Georgian Foreign Influence Regime under a Comparative Framework

The School was organised by the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway and the Eureast Platform at Ghent University, in partnership with the Human Rights Centre, Ghent University, the University of Groningen and Uppsala University. The School was co-funded by the European Union project, the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Facility.

We thank all speakers, organisers and participants for their commitment and insights.