Jurists propose solutions to the challenges of the pandemic and the current world

JURISTS CONGRESS

Barranquilla (Colombia), Dec 2 (EFE) .- Dozens of relevant jurists, politicians and experts from around the world addressed, with the covid-19 pandemic as a recurring theme, the issues that shape the current world and the rule of law on the first day of the World Congress of Jurists, which took place in Barranquilla.

Messages such as that of the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at the opening of the XVII Biennial Congress of the World Association of Jurists (WJA, in English) to “guarantee the legal framework that allows to face the pandemic in the best way ”were repeated throughout the day in the Caribbean city.

An “international agreement is necessary so that all the countries of the world are prepared and can have effective responses to pandemics,” said Tedros, in a video message launched from Geneva, where he addresses the crisis supposed by the appearance of a new variant. , the omicron.

The president of the WJA, the Spanish Javier Cremades, stated in the same opening that in the midst of the difficulties faced by the countries due to the pandemic, “the sessions will serve as encouragement to those who fight every day to achieve justice and peace through the right”.

They will also “allow us to advance efficiently, quickly and intelligently in understanding the great transformations, challenges and opportunities that society presents us.”

CONCERN FOR WOMEN

In one of the first panels of the day, the former president of Ecuador Rosalía Arteaga expressed her concern about the effects that the pandemic may have on the rights that women have won in recent years.

“Let’s hope that the pandemic does not segregate us again to the private sphere because unfortunately when we see employability rates and participation rates of women in these last two years they have decreased,” he said.

Arteaga participated in the panel “Educate in human rights”, sharing the stage with the former president of the Dominican Republic Leonel Fernández and the Guatemalan activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1992, Rigoberta Menchú, with the moderation of the Secretary General of the Organization of Ibero-American States ( OEI), Mariano Jabonero.

PANDEMIC AND EDUCATION

The Director of Research and Analysis of UNESCO-IESALC, the Spanish Victoria Galán, indicated, in another of the talks, that “this crisis is the opportunity to rethink the way in which higher education is developing because we must try not to return to traditional models before the pandemic ”.

For the academic vice-rector of the Universidad del Norte de Barranquilla, Joachim Hahn, it was “a surprise” to see how the academic results of the students did not suffer the onslaught of the pandemic since there were “important and significant advances with respect to the time before the pandemic”.

Despite the challenges that education suffered during the pandemic, with the closure of schools, institutes and universities, and millions of boys and girls in rural areas without connection and without months of school, “it seems that we did well “Said the expert.

Although he warned that “we do not know how we are going to combine the remote with the face-to-face, the pandemic removes the veils that allow us to identify the value of face-to-face education in undergraduate degrees and there is no way to work with adolescents if it is not face-to-face.”

CONTROL OF SOCIAL NETWORKS AGAINST DISINFORMATION

The conference also analyzed the lack of a legal corset for large technology companies, such as Facebook or Twitter, which regulate crimes such as slander or limit misinformation.

“Companies that are managed through digital platforms do not usually pay taxes or pay them so little that they make competition ridiculous (against traditional media),” said the former director of the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo Roberto Pombo.

Companies such as Facebook, Twitter or Google have monopolized information in every country in the world, paying very little taxes and without paying the sources, and it is from the traditional media that they feed, as recalled by the honorary president of the Spanish newspaper El País. , Juan Luis Cebrián.

Another of the fundamental issues was the migratory crises in the world or the environmental challenges. In this sense, the Commissioner of the Organization of American States (OAS) for the Venezuelan migratory crisis, David Smolansky, assured that the situation “of Venezuelan migrants and refugees for 2022 is projected to be the largest in the world; there are going to be more Venezuelan migrants than Syrians ”.

Migrants “are victims of the lack of clear or stable policies for migration,” said in the same panel Colombian lawyer Javier Jaramillo, president of Pro Corp, who denounced the lack of “unified policies” and assured that migration crises are they must deal with from “an international perspective”.

The World Congress of Jurists will end this Friday with new panels and talks with top-level relevant figures and will be closed by King Felipe VI.

Hugo Penso Correa