Miia Halme-Tuomisaari

Human Rights in Action: Learning Expert Knowledge

This study combines anthropological and critical legal approaches to explore the conceptions of knowledge, expertise and learning of a network of Nordic human rights experts. It explores how the ideals of emancipation are realized in human rights action.

Lobbying for relevance: American internationalists, French civil libertarians and the UDHR

As a new week dawns, yet another session by some UN human rights monitoring body or other opens. Every detail of the session replicates what an outsider imagines UN ‘human rights in action’ to look like. The session is arranged perhaps at the Palais Wilson, headquarters of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that once hosted the League of Nations, and is characterized by ornate staircases, carved ceilings and a striking view of the Lac Léman with the city of Geneva glittering in the background. During sessions one sees a steady flow of state delegates, representatives of NGOs from all corners of the world as well as staff from the UN secretariat. Jointly they bring ‘the international’ alive, giving it a ‘face’ that is every bit as diverse as the universal ethos of human rights discourse suggests. However, as tangible as the (racial) diversity of participants becomes, closer examination overshadows it with a distinct sameness. For, although they may have diverse geographic origins, in many ways the individuals present are similar to each other: they are fluent in the same expert jargon of human rights – and often in many other languages too – they are widely travelled and highly educated. They are worldly, ‘modern’, exquisite in their tastes; they are the epitome of cosmopolitan (the person, not the drink). Whether due to the understated elegance of their expensive handbags, or stories of their favoured exotic dishes, airlines or holiday destinations, it is evident that they belong to the same socio-economic elite membership in which is a practical prerequisite for gaining access to the professional community of UN human rights experts and advocates.

‘Absolute and Undefined’: Exploring The Popularity of Human Rights in Finland

To say that an enormous phenomenon has formed around human rights since World War II is stating the obvious. Yet we remain largely without answers on why this development has occurred. What is the contemporary fascination with human rights fundamentally about? What kind of attributes do people around the world invest in the concept of human rights? Building on my earlier research on political rhetoric, human rights education and lay discussions on human rights, I have identified two decisive characterizations. The first is the assumption that human rights have an absolute and essential meaning. The second is the fact that no-one knows exactly what this meaning is. This raises the question: how can we understand a phenomenon formed around such an intrinsic logical discrepancy? I suggest that human rights need to be approached fundamentally as matters of belief. I further argue that despite of the infinite number of such human rights artefacts as international conventions requiring routinized professional processing, activism rarely disappears entirely from human rights action.

Emergence Of The Human Rights Phenomenon In Finland

This chapter examines how the human rights phenomenon has evolved both in Finland and internationally since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted. By connecting this analysis to post-World War II era political developments, the chapter observes how the human rights discourse has moved from the periphery of the Finnish society to its centre. The chapter investigates how the rise of human rights development is reflected in the Finnish context by examining three elements of the human rights phenomenon: the human rights discourse, the community and artifacts. It considers the contemporary human rights phenomenon to have commenced with the adoption of the UDHR in 1948. Expansion has been the most salient element of the global human rights phenomenon. Thematic expansion of academic invocations has been accompanied by a steady increase of academic journals focussing on human rights.Keywords: Finnish human rights discourse; global human rights phenomenon; Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)