HRJust studies how human rights are turned from a regime of compliance into an instrument of governance. This occurs when States use human rights to justify their actions and decisions – a Human Rights Justification (HRJ). HRJs are used at both the Horizontal, inter-State level for shaping the international legal order, and the Vertical, (intra-State level) [Diagram1] defining the meaning of a human right in its domestic application. The gap in science and in regulations occurs when States use human rights as an instrument of governance. Human rights regimes are created as regimes of compliance and not of governance because they operate on the presumption that only individual persons can be in possession of human rights, which hold the State accountable for its human rights obligations.
This shift has significant implications for the EU as a global actor as Russia and China have identified human rights as an instrument of governance through which the international legal order can be re-shaped and are promoting competing rights regimes. Such developments directly affect countries like Taiwan and India (with their proximity to China), and Ukraine (impacted by the Russian war), but also Finland and Sweden who both responded to the Russian threat by joining NATO.
Whereas EU human rights regime is structured around protecting individuals’ rights against those of the State, Russian and Chinese regimes are State-centred (the individual cannot have any rights above the rights of the State). Further, neither has recognised the reach of international law into their own intra-State activities, in contrast to liberal democracies, which do.
HRJust is delivered by 15 partners in 7 WPs, deliberately combining a plurality of perspectives and schools of Law, Social Science and Humanities with prominent civil society actors, to ensure outputs are comprehensive and workable. We review both horizontal (inter-State) and vertical (intra-State) HRJs, and in particular, what happens within a liberal democratic framework of human rights in moments of crisis when States’ use of HRJs as an instrument of governance risks the horizontal and vertical applications of HRJ reinforcing each other into a systemic favouring of State interest over that of the individual.
Objectives:
1. Provide an overview and map of State HRJ practices across a number of themes, geographic areas and timeframes through five land studies (Sweden, Finland, Taiwan, India, Ukraine), stress tested in three crises across three timescales (WP4: Covid/past, WP5: Migration/present, WP6: Climate/future as in intergenerational) [Diagram2], with WP3 focusing on interdisciplinary theory & WP7 on creating an interdisciplinary empirical/cross-cutting approach
2. Generate an empirically developed new methodology for reinvigoration of an inclusive civil society democratic participation (Ongoing Democratic Civil Society Engagement, ODCSE)
3. Identify new policy & regulatory avenues for more robust, democratic and effective global governance towards transnational democracy in light of State HRJ practices
4. Provide recommendations for when EU is best served by pursuing multinational, regional or bilateral cooperation in promoting human rights and democracy
5. Identify geopolitical effects of how States use HRJs
6. Provide recommendations for a strategy for a more gender and intersectionality inclusive society
7. Provide recommendations for protecting human rights defenders.
Legal theory and method focus on legal positivist forms of HRJ, excluding, for example, moral definitions. However, WP3 is delivering an interdisciplinary normative theory going beyond the legal and positivist understanding of HRJs. WP7will analyse empirical data from the thematic WPs through interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches (e.g. sociology anthropology).
HRJust will dedicate Year2 to civil society engagement (ODCSE) to better identify the concrete effects upon human rights defenders and civil society when human rights are turned into instrument of governance controlled by the State.
Anticipated impacts include generating:
Recommendations for new regulations and policy that will enable EU to position itself as an effective Global human rights defender and promotor of democracy
A Civil Society narrative taking account of the authoritarian domestic trends within traditional liberal democracies, including effective strategies of resistance.
Toolboxes and new networks of human rights allies to support Civil Society when fighting to preserve human rights and democracy in a more authoritarian political climate
