Nordic Histories of Human Rights

This book explores the history of Nordic human rights politics and practices from the 1930s to present day. The authors use previously unexplored archival materials to bring to light how a broad range of Nordic actors have engaged with international human rights globally and at a European level and how these norms have been taken up and interpreted in the region.

Do the Nordic countries warrant the label ‘global good Samaritans’ in human rights promotion? Is the Nordic welfare state a close to perfect realisation of human rights norms? Or do Nordic international and domestic human rights policies constitute a peculiar ‘Nordic human rights paradox’ where norms are supported internationally while not being implemented at home? Are the ideals of the national welfare state and universal human rights compatible? In this book, the authors take issue with previous scholarship and argue for the need for careful historical investigations into how a broad range of Nordic actors have contributed to creating international human rights. This history is much more varied than what was previously assumed. The lack of prior interest in the region means there are several promising avenues for historical investigations of both the Nordic countries in human rights history and the role of human rights in the history of the region.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal, Nordic Journal of Human Rights.

Hanne Hagtvedt Vik is Professor of International History at the University of Oslo, Norway. Her work on indigenous internationalism and Sami, Nordic and US human rights history have appeared in Journal of Global History, International History Review and Nordic Journal of Human Rights. She is the Director of the Norwegian Research School in History.

Steven L. B. Jensen is Senior Researcher at The Danish Institute for Human Rights, Denmark. He is the author of the prize-winning book The Making of International Human Rights. The 1960s, Decolonization and the Reconstruction of Global Values (2016). His recent publications include Histories of Global Inequality: New Perspectives (2019).

Linde Lindkvist is PhD and Senior Lecturer in human rights studies at the School of Human Rights, University College Stockholm, Sweden. He is the author of Religious Freedom and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (2017). His ongoing project concerns the origins of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Johan Strang is Academy of Finland Research Fellow and Associate Professor in Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has a broad interest in the intellectual and political history of the Nordic region and his recent publications include the edited volumes Nordic Cooperation: A European Region in Transition (2016) and Decentering European Intellectual Space (2018).