CEDU's Director, Prof. Alessandra Silveira, had the honour to close, with Prof. Marcelo Lamy (Santos Catholic University - UNISANTOS, Brazil), International Colloquium "Human Rights and Democracy" activities. The activity was organized by Open University and took place on 5 and 6 June 2014, in Lisbon.

Besides being part of the event's Scientific Commission, Alessandra Silveira presented a lecture on "Human Rights as the foundation of modern democracy". The colloquium provided an integration for UNISANTOS PhD students who are developing research in Portugal through "sandwich scholarships" given by CAPES, among those PhD students is Mardónio da Silva Girão, whose advisor is Prof. Alessandra Silveira, and who presented the subject "Improving human welfare and social equality from the perspective of the Green Economy: the Brazilian challenge on the determinations of UNEP's Report".