From 11 to 13 September 2025, the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (IDEHPUCP), in partnership with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom – Andean Country Office (FNF), hosted a conference of the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI). This network comprises over eighty institutions from more than thirty countries.

Held under the theme “Protecting Human Rights amid the Global Expansion of Organised Crime”, the event brought together scholars, practitioners, and civil society representatives to discuss one of the most pressing challenges facing democracy and the protection of fundamental rights. The programme was structured around four thematic areas. The first area explored the global dimension of organised crime and its impact on governance, corruption, and community security. The second thematic focus analysed legal and institutional frameworks, identifying both their strengths and limitations in addressing these complex phenomena. The third issue focused on successful community-based responses, highlighting local strategies of resilience, citizen participation, and human rights defence in contexts of violence and vulnerability. Lastly, the fourth area offered a retrospective on twenty-five years of progress and challenges in human rights, assessing academic contributions and identifying the gaps that persist in confronting the growing influence of organised crime.

The conference in Lima served as a diverse and collaborative forum for dialogue, reaffirming the need for coordinated, evidence-based, and rights-centred approaches to protect human rights in an increasingly transnational criminal landscape.