‘Gone With the Wind
...I sail because I love sailing, not because I love the sea. This is because it is possible to love the sea also from dry land. Actually those staying ashore treat the ocean better than those sailing in the waters, as they pollute it less. When I discovered how common it is among boaters to empty their septic tanks into the ocean, I got furious ... Nowadays it is more common to wonder why a small boat cannot empty its waste into the ocean, as many cargo and passenger ships do so too. Good question, but one has to start from somewhere. And this is not a question of rights, but of obligations. It is not a human right to pollute the ocean.’
Bettina Sågbom, MeNaiset 6.7.2006, 77;
original in Finnish, translation by author
The above excerpt originates from the monthly column of a celebrated jour-nalist in one of Finland’s foremost women’s magazines. The passage is note-worthy due to the ingenious use it makes of the human rights discourse as something suitable to arbitrate whether or not boaters are allowed to dirty the already damaged coastal waterways. However, even more important is the fact that the discourse is used in the fi rst place. This illustrates the societal and ideological position that the human rights discourse occupies in the Finnish context today: it has become a popularised discourse that is utilized by a wide spectrum of actors to address all kinds of everyday matters. This chapter explores the emergence of the human rights phenomenon in Finland by trac-ing it through the decades since the adoption of the Universal Declaration. By connecting this examination to post-World War II era political developments,
this chapter observes how the human rights discourse has moved from the periphery of the Finnish society to its centre. Simultaneously this develop-ment has transformed Finland from a peripheral into a central actor in the global human rights phenomenon.8
The concepts centre and periphery are familiar from the world-systems analysis of Emmanuel Wallerstein, who has utilized them to describe struc-tural positions in a world economy (Wallerstein 2000, 86). Ulf Hannerz has expanded these concepts to include the fl ow of meanings (Hannerz 1992).
This is also the sense in which these terms are utilized in the present study.
The centre of the global human rights phenomenon can be approached through Sally Engle Merry’s discussion on transnational consensus building producing the regime of human rights law. She characterizes this process as occurring in a transnational social space where actors from all parts of the world come together (Merry 2006a, 37). She discusses how this space has its own norms, values and cultural practices; how it is an English-speak-ing, largely secular, universalistic, law-governed culture which is organized around the formal equality of nations as well as their economic and political inequality (Merry 2006a, 37). In this study periphery refers to the opposite of centre: non- English speaking, religion-oriented, local cultures characterized by traditional customs and social structures.
These are elements that can be assessed as characterizing also Finland, par-ticularly in the fi rst decades of the post-World War II era. Following Merry’s dis-cussion as well as Hannerz’s analysis on the fl ow of meaning, the centre of the human rights phenomenon is construed as being ‘de-territorialized’ (Merry 2006a).
Consequently, in addition to emerging in such concrete locations as UN offi ces in Geneva and New York, centres may emerge in any given location that becomes the site of transnational human rights activity. The overarching observation of this chapter becomes the enormous expansion of the human rights phenomenon since the adoption of the Universal Declaration. One commentator calls this development
‘the Rise and Rise of Human Rights’ (Sellars 2002) while another has phrased us as living in ‘The Age of Rights’ (Henkin 1990). This chapter sets out to investigate how ‘the age of rights’ is refl ected in the Finnish context.
8 Scholars and participants of the civil society concur that existing textual sources do not offer a comprehensive account of the discussed events. Thus this section also relies on interviews, correspondence and discussion with Juhani Kortteinen, Martin Scheinin, Tuomas Ojanen, Klaus Törnudd, Mikael Hidén, Matti Pellonpää and Holger Rotkirch. As this chapter is introductory in nature, it has not been possible to offer all addressed issues detailed empirical analysis. Instead it is hoped that such research will appear in the future. For an introduction into the historical origins of human rights in Finland, see Törnudd 1986, 13-18.
The Discourse and the Dawning Human Rights Phenomenon For the purposes of this analysis the human rights phenomenon is construed as being formed of three parts: the human rights discourse, the community and artifacts (Graph 2).
Graph 2: Human Rights Phenomenon
The starting point of the contemporary human rights phenomenon is further set at the adoption of the UN Charter of 1945 entailing a reference to human rights, and consequently the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.9 The human rights discourse is construed as stemming from the Age of Enlightenment and the natural rights theory articulated by such 17th and 18th century fi gures as John Locke and Immanuel Kant.10 The natural rights theory is further viewed as having transformed into a distinct and societally prestig-ious discourse primarily in the late 19th and early 20th century. This develop-ment is approached as having given rise to a budding sense of a human rights community, many members of whom advocated in the 1940s for the adoption of the Universal Declaration, the most important human rights artifact to date.
Scholars differ greatly in their treatment of events leading up to the adoption of the Universal Declaration. Most common narratives emphasize the revulsion
9 For an introduction into to the human rights phenomenon, see among others MacFarlane 1985;
Helminen & Lång 1987; Steiner & Alston 2000; Ignatieff 2001; Freeman 2002; Nowak 2003;
Donnelly 2003; Marks & Clapham 2005; Mahoney 2007. For the historical background of the human rights phenomenon, see Donnelly 1985; Galtung 1994; Lauren 1998. For an introduction outlining the human rights regime in the late 1990s, see Hanski & Suksi 1997; Arat 2006; Isa
& Feyter 2006.
10 See for example Locke 2007[1689] and Kant 1991[1784]. For an introduction to natural rights theories, see Tuck 1979.
provoked by the Holocaust (Powers 2003, Freeman 2002, Glendon 2003), and identify the emergence of the human rights discourse with the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco in the spring of 1945 (Alfredsson & Eide 1999; Morsink 1999; Glendon 2003; Waltz 2001). Such narratives are often associated with an emphasis on key individuals such as Eleanor Roosevelt, René Cassin or John Humphrey (Glendon 2001; Lauren 1998; Korey 1998).
These narratives are also viewed as problematic. Mark Mazover notes how research has demonstrated that Nazi atrocities were far less central to perceptions of the war in 1945 than they are today (Mazover 2004, 381).11 Scholars have emphasized how the ‘visionary individual’ narrative overlooks state power and ignores the efforts of other individuals propagating the cause earlier, such as the émigré Russian lawyer Andre Mandelstam (Mazover 2004, 381; Burges 1992), or H.G. Wells (Wells 1940; Lauren 1998,151-152; Mazover 2004, 385; Burges 1992, 464-468). The impact of Hersch Lauterpacht’s book ‘An International Bill of the Rights of Man’ is also often emphasized (Lauterpacht 1945; Mazover 2004, 385). In addition to specifi c visionary individuals, many scholars highlight the impact of numerous coa-litions that emerged around the human rights discourse at the turn of the 20th century in Europe in particular, among them the famous Ligue francais pour la défense des droits de l’homme et du citoyen (Simpson 2001; Petman 2006; L’Institut de Droit International 1929; Wiseberg & Scoble 1977, 292-3; Rinoceros 2006).12 Criticism has likewise been aimed at the general tone of narratives outlining the origins the human rights phenomenon, relating to the way they isolate political and legislative developments from their wider context. Consequently, refl ecting the general spirit of forward-looking pro-gressiveness of much human rights scholarship, for example the emergence of specifi c artifacts is approached rather with reference to developments fol-lowing their adoption instead of detailed analysis of the historical context and other developments that contributed to the documents’ development at the time of their emergence (Mazover 2004, 397). This approach gives rise to
11 Mark Mazover’s discussion provides one refl ection of a signifi cant discussion among histori-ans of the interpretation of historic events; see Skinner 2002; Kosellek 2002; Palonen 2006 as well as Tuori 2006.
12 The Ligue was founded in France in 1898 (Ligue de droits de l’homme et du citoyen, 2006) and prior to World War I enjoyed a huge membership, between 200 000 and 300 000 people. It promoted the founding of similar organizations elsewhere in Europe (although not in the UK) and the French colonial possessions. National Ligues were founded in Belgium and Greece the same year, and in Germany and Austria some decades later (Wiseberg and Scoble 1977, 292-3).
In 1922, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues was founded (Rinoceros 2006).
the impression that the human rights phenomenon progresses with an almost natural-law like momentum to its logical end point.
Aware of these criticisms, this section outlines developments that are for the purposes of this study understood as decisive. Yet due to limitations of space, its tone remains introductory. Overall, this analysis assigns great-er weight to Amgreat-erican infl uences in the drafting efforts for the Universal Declaration than is commonly done (see for example Petman 2006).13 This fi nding stems from two primary conclusions. First, due to the devastated con-ditions of Europe, as the continent had barely begun to recover from the war, no sources suggest that - despite the adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950 - surplus efforts were available in 1945 for such systematically orchestrated lobbying efforts that could have yielded suffi -cient momentum to secure the inclusion of references to human rights in the UN Charter or the establishment of the drafting committee for the Universal Declaration.14 Second, virtually all examined sources discussing both the lobbying efforts surrounding the inclusion of human rights references in the UN Charter and the drafting efforts for the Universal Declaration end up highlighting the importance of US impact. US infl uence is refl ected in the documents commonly assigned the status as the most signifi cant predeces-sors for the Universal Declaration; this matter will be elaborated in Chapter 3. American NGOs held a decisive role in efforts to gain recognition for human rights in the UN Charter, and individuals either born or educated in the US and North America were in key positions in the drafting process.15 Simultaneously no accounts suggest that European impacts held an equally signifi cant and consistent role over any of these elements.
13 In the course of this research venture I spent nearly a year and a half exploring the origins of the Universal Declaration, the inter-war period and in particular the origins of the American civil liberties movement. The results of this research will be more fully refl ected in a planned article.
14 This is refl ected for example in the Ligue francais: it was effectively destroyed during World War II as its members were dispersed, with many emigrating to the US. There the Ligue was reorganized and renamed the International League for the Rights of Man. Korey recognizes the League as one of the only NGOs focussing on human rights during the drafting of the Declaration. It included as members Eleanor Roosevelt and Charles Malik, future chair of the Drafting Committee (Wiseberg & Scoble 1977, 292-293; Korey 1998, 99-100; Cottrell 2000, 169; Walker 1999, 67, 392). For an account on the emigration of European intellectuals during World War II, see Krohn 1993.
15 Annelise Riles discusses how this is still characteristic due to ‘the leadership of U.S. trained lawyers (of various nationalities) in the building of key institutions of the postwar international legal regime’ (Riles 2006a, 59).
To gain further appreciation and context for the impact of American NGOs, it is useful to remember that many of the prestigious international-ist groups involved in the lobbying efforts behind the Universal Declaration exerted signifi cant infl uence in the White House during the Roosevelt admin-istration. These internationalist groups, still recalling the disappointment over US refusal to join the League of Nations, viewed strong US involve-ment in the new world organization as their key goal (Johnstone 2006, 133-164; Josephson, 1975; Cooper 2001; Eichelberger 1977; Korey 1998, 29-50;
Simpson 2001, 190-202). Many of them viewed reference to human rights as the paramount element of the UN charter, and accounts of both contem-porary and later scholars suggest that the US delegation only came to view their inclusion favourably after the lobbying of powerful American interest groups. With the Soviet Union and Great Britain opposing such inclusion, strong support by the US delegate became pivotal for the success of the evolving UN human rights regime.16 Instead of operating in a vacuum, these internationalist groups refl ected a moment when in the US, following dec-ades of activism, the civil liberties movement had arisen throughout the coun-try including the US Supreme Court, and it celebrated the American Bill of Rights as the defi ning safeguard of individual liberties (Walker 1999; Cottrell 2000; Murphy 1979; US Supreme Court 2005).17 This movement also had international adherents, who in their turn contributed to efforts to draft the
‘International Bill of Rights’, as the Universal Declaration was called for example by Eleanor Roosevelt (Roosevelt 1992, 314).18
16 Korey states: ‘What is especially striking, and generally not known, is that the historic break-through never would have taken place without the commitment, determination and pressure of a group of American nongovernmental organizations’. The drafting efforts featured 42 US-based interest groups which participated in the negotiations in a consultative status (Korey 1998, 29;
35-39). No other country enjoyed similar representation. A key moment in their input was May 2 1945, which marked the deadline of amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, then entailing no reference to human rights. Interest groups sprung into action, persuading the US delegation to back up the matter, and leading to inclusion of human rights in the UN Charter (Proskauer 1950, 219-227; Eichelberger 1977, 268-272; Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, 1945; Glendon 2001, 17. For a more cautionary version of this origin, see Simpson 2001, 243-244; 251-253).
17 Central here was the 1925 Scopes ‘Monkey’ trial over the teaching of the Darwinian theory of evolution versus the Biblical story of creationism (Scopes Trial 1925; Larson 1997, 35; Marsden 2006); a controversy that is still alive. The American civil liberties movement has a link to the drafting of the Universal Declaration through the persona of Roger Baldwin, the internationally minded long-term chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union, who is stated to have single-handedly reorganized the International League for the Rights of Man (Wiseberg & Scoble 1977, 292-293; Korey 1998, 99-100; Cottrell 2000, 169; Walker 1999, 67, 392).
18 Mary Ann Glendon mentions how as drafting progressed, the drafting committee slowly came
The First Decades of the Human Rights Phenomenon
After the Universal Declaration was adopted in 1948, scholarship commonly portrays the subsequent developments as marking a smooth and unchallenged triumph for the human rights phenomenon. Closer examination, however, sug-gests a more complex reality with the fi rst decades after the adoption being overshadowed by the Cold War and marked by uncertainty and slowness.
The 1950s and the early 1960s were particularly challenging: efforts to draft the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights as well as Economic, Social and Cultural Rights faced continual diffi culties, and UN offi ces, including the Human Rights Commission, faced charges of increasing ‘politicization’ lead-ing to ineffi ciency and coalition building. (Franck 1985, 94-116; Glendon 2001, 208; Evans 1996, 86). As a consequence of these charges, numerous powerful American NGOs turned their attention away from UN bodies and began exert-ing impact on the American and other governments instead (Korey 1998, 139).
This intensifi ed American unilateralism as the country, after resorting back to its earlier policy of isolationism, started increasingly to remain outside the UN framework. This undermined hopes for the new era of multilateral collabora-tion that had accompanied the founding of the organizacollabora-tion.
Scholars have assessed that the UN human rights framework was undermined by the adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950 as well as the founding of the European Court of Human Rights providing a supranational forum for individual petitions, something that in the UN context was much weaker (Glendon 2001, 217). This intensi-fi ed European collaboration - an outcome to which disappointment over the prolonged treaty negotiations at the UN certainly contributed - and some commentators have assessed this to have rendered the future of the UN’s human rights regime uncertain. (Simpson 2001, 511-542; Glendon 2001, 200-202). Combined, these circumstances led to a situation where for much of the period between 1945 and the early 1970s human rights remained
‘a “minority” interest’ (Evans 1996, 148) in the UN. Dag Hammarskjöld, for example, is stated to have given them low priority when he became the organization’s Secretary-General in 1953 (Glendon 2001, 208). Global public attention was occupied by security concerns, the Warsaw Pact and its tanks, the energy crisis and nuclear disarmament, and the human rights phenomenon remained at the margins of international collaboration (Evans 1996, 148; Franck 1985, 76-93).
to use the term declaration more often than bill (Glendon 2001, 66).
In the mid-1960s and 1970s the scales began to tip as the ‘painfully slow’ draft-ing efforts for the two Covenants started to bear fruit (Glendon 2001, 206).
In 1966 the Covenants for Civil and Political Rights as well as Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were fi nally signed. It took yet another decade for the Covenants to enter into force, but in 1976 the ‘International Bill of Rights’ was fi nally completed (ICCPR, CESCR, 1976; High Commissioner for Human Rights 2006; Evans 1996, 91-95; Sellars 2002, 75-81; Craven 1995; Henkin, 1981). In terms of ratifi cation signalling adherence of diverse states to the new regulatory human rights framework, the 1970s became deci-sive: whereas for example the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights was during the 1960s ratifi ed by only 6 states, by the end of the 1970s the number had grown to 61 (High Commissioner, 2004; Table 1).19 After this start, other documents soon followed: the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) entered into force already in 1969; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1981; the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) in 1987; and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1990. As is illustrated by Table 1, after the 1970s treaty ratifi cation received its second peak during the 1990s, a matter elaborated later.20
From ‘Finlandization’ to ‘ EU Model Pupil’
The relationship of Finland and the human rights phenomenon in the past decades remains a source of intense debate. This section attempts to intro-duce the different viewpoints of this discussion while simultaneously outlin-ing how these developments are understood for the purposes of this study on the basis of inquiry, focussing, in addition to legislative developments and policy making, on the sentiments of the civil society. In this study, Finland’s attitude toward the human rights phenomenon until the late 1980s is seen as
19 In the 1960s the Covenant was ratifi ed by Cyprus, Tunisia, Syria, Colombia, Equador and Costa Rica. Slow momentum can in part be ascribed to the necessity of bringing domestic legis-lation into conformity with the provisions of the Treaty before ratifying it.
20 Table 1 includes the treaties that are enlisted in the website of the UN Offi ce of the High
20 Table 1 includes the treaties that are enlisted in the website of the UN Offi ce of the High