The Winning Essays of the Security and/or Human Rights Essay Competition Have Been Published!

Following the 6th International Summer School on Security and/or Human Rights, held in Mardin between 8 and 12 June 2026 in partnership with the Human Rights Academy and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, an essay competition was organized to deepen the program's impact and encourage participants' intellectual contributions.

The booklet brings together the winning essays by Kitti Modroczky, Sally Nasr, Ariadna Carchano, Seher Irmak Aydın, Fabian Grepper, Aliye Fettah and Giorgi Jokhadze. Drawing on personal experiences and academic analysis, the authors explore the duties and obligations of their generation in defending peace, security and human rights for future generations.

In "The Border We No Longer See," Kitti Modroczky starts from an evening view of the Syrian border from Mardin and argues that today's crises ignore the boundaries we still use to understand politics, including the one between security and human rights. In "Future Generations: The Duties and Obligations of My Generation," Sally Nasr draws on growing up in Lebanon to call on a generation that has learned to normalize crises to break this cycle.

Ariadna Carchano's "Governing Multiplexity" argues that freedom must also be defended against cognitive and algorithmic interference, treating cognitive security and social cohesion as democratic infrastructure. Seher Irmak Aydın, in "Between 'Freedom' and 'Security' for Future Generations," examines why Generation Z is increasingly drawn to populist and authoritarian politics, while Fabian Grepper turns to Karl Popper and Ralf Dahrendorf in "Popper, Dahrendorf, and the Generational Duty to Defend Peace and the Open Society" to warn against a drift toward a "new feudalism" in the international order.

In "Future Generations: The Duties and Obligations of Our Generation," Aliye Fettah examines the declining enforcement power of international organizations and the global erosion of democracy, proposing rights-based solutions. Finally, in "The Fragile Balance: Security, Power and Human Rights in the Age of Polycrisis," Giorgi Jokhadze shows through recent events in Georgia how security can become a pretext for restricting fundamental rights, and highlights the role of young people in defending democracy.

You can use the link to access this special report, where young experts blend security and human rights perspectives with personal experiences and academic analysis.