Major grant to human rights research
The HRJust research project, including participants from the Department of Law, Stockholm University, has been awarded € 3 million by The European Commission's Horizon Europe. It's expected to be completed in spring 2026.
Laura Carlson, Paul Lappalainen and Elica Ghavidal-Rostami at the Faculty of Law, are participants in the EU-Horizon Project, HRJust, States’ Practices of Human Rights Justifications: A study in civil society engagement and human rights through the lens of gender and intersectionality, which was awarded 3 million Euro by the EU Commission this summer. The principal investigator for the project is Maria Grahn-Farley, currently professor at Leeds-Beckett UK.
HRJust has a total of 17 participating institutions, with the following universities: Stockholm (Faculty of Law), Bern, Lappland, Academia Sinica, Gothenburg, Amsterdam, Rome, Trento, Haifa, Ustav Mezinardodnich Vstahu, National Cheng Kung, Taiwan and Maastricht.
Project description
Human Rights Justifications (HRJ) as envisioned in HRJust are when States use human rights to justify decisions. Human rights regimes in contrast operate on the presumption that only individual persons can be in possession of human rights. The regulatory gaps occurring when the States use HRJ for their actions are two-fold, one in the regulation of the States’ use of HRJ and one in the individual human rights protection when States use HRJ.
HRJust aims to develop a theory of HRJ and a process for Systematic Ongoing Civil Society Engagement as a tool for a gender and intersectional inclusive Civil Society engagement. HRJust is to identify gaps in human rights regulations and protection, serving as underpinning data for our recommendations to EU in support of a multinational human rights system and promotion of transnational democratic governance.
HRJust will also identify geopolitical elements that influence States’ use of HRJ. This will be done through 5 countries: Sweden, Finland, Taiwan, India and Ukraine, through three actions: human rights dialogue, inclusive democratic participations, and protection of human rights defenders, and operationalised through three themes: Covid, Migration and Climate.
About Horizon Europe
Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation.
It tackles climate change, helps to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosts the EU’s competitiveness and growth.
The programme facilitates collaboration and strengthens the impact of research and innovation in developing, supporting and implementing EU policies while tackling global challenges.
Last updated: September 19, 2022
Source: SU Law