The Human Rights Congress and the 2025 Carlos Carniner Human Rights Awards are being held at a pivotal moment for the consolidation of the right to defense in Spain and Europe. This year marks the entry into force of Organic Law 5/2024 on the Right to Defense, a pioneering piece of legislation that recognizes this right as a structural pillar of the rule of law and strengthens guarantees for the free and independent practice of law.
Furthermore, the Convention for the Protection of Lawyers, open for signature and ratification at the Council of Europe in May 2025, establishes for the first time a binding international framework to protect lawyers from threats, reprisals and criminalization for their professional work.
In this context, the Abogacía Española —through his Consejo General and the Foundation Abogacía Española— has played an active role in promoting these regulatory advances, as well as in defending lawyers at risk through the International Observatory of Lawyers at Risk and its contribution to the European Commission's Rule of Law Report.
The objective of this Congress is to bring together key actors from the legal, institutional and human rights fields to analyze, highlight and strengthen the protection of human rights lawyers, in an increasingly challenging environment for the free exercise of the right to defense.