Working within the European Union, the United Nations and Council of Europe
Sweden is active, both bilaterally and multilaterally in defending and improving the protection of human rights.
Sweden will give priority to the promotion of human rights during its chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 2008 and its Presidency of the European Union in 2009.
A major point of departure for Swedish policy is that human rights are universal, indissoluble, mutually interdependent and interrelated. The human being is a unified whole and a human life, living in dignity is conditional on all rights being respected. Thus, it is as important to promote and protect political and civil rights, as it is to safeguard economic, social and cultural rights.
The European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy
Within the European Union (EU) human rights are an important element of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the international arena, the EU is working actively to combat, inter alia, the death penalty and torture. The EU now has general Human Rights guidelines on the Union's contacts with third countries and Human Rights defendors, the death penalty, children in armed conflict and torture that are used continually in the EU's contacts with third party countries. It is also clear from the EU's development policy that human rights should be an integral theme of all the Union's development cooperation. There are a number of multilateral channels and arenas for exerting influence. The UN system is one of these.
The United Nations
Together with other countries within the EU, Sweden is playing a proactive role in the UN Council on Human Rights. Cooperation with the High Commissioner for Human Rights is particularly important. Sweden is also actively working to ensure that human rights issues are taken up in other UN contexts, such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Key issues that Sweden is pursuing in the UN are the rights of the child and of women, the abolition of the death penalty and torture, and the rights of persons belonging to minority groups and indigenous peoples. Council of Europe in Strasbourg The Council of Europe has developed the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and has a unique monitoring system via its court, where complaints both from individual citizens and states can be examined.
OSCE
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) regards respect for human rights as an integral part of political development and thus as an essential element in the conflict-prevention work of this organisation.
Particularly important issues in Europe are the rights of persons belonging to ethnic and national minorities, economic and social rights, the development of the rule of law and, in broad terms, conflict prevention.
Mainstreaming a Human Rights perspective
Human rights are a recurrent theme in Sweden's bilateral contacts and cooperation with other countries. Bilaterally, they are taken up, inter alia, in dialogues with various countries. Diplomatic dialogues may open the way for prestige-free discussions without political deadlocks, and the fact that they are dialogues means that criticism is in no way precluded.
By integrating human rights into development cooperation, Sweden is working to ensure that these are respected, protected, promoted and upheld in the countries with which it cooperates. At the same time, human rights set the standard for the contents of Swedish development cooperation and the methods used in development, implementation and evaluation. By adopting a human rights perspective, we attach special value to development cooperation, in putting the individual at the centre.
Last edited 2008-04-02
