On Human Rights

In our latest episode of "On Human Rights," we come to you from the middle of the Baltic Sea. We’re on the small island of Gotland in Sweden where there’s an annual political gathering called Almedalen. The week-long event draws thousands from the political classes, different universities, civil society actors and business world. Today we’re speaking to Simon Ebers. He does incredible work for an organization called Fryshuset. Simon works with helping young people get out of criminal gangs and right-wing extremist groups. We sat down to talk about the methods, why they do this work, and the factors that push youth into gangs and extremist groups.

This week, our podcast, "On Human Rights," is coming to you from the middle of the Baltic Sea, on the island of Gotland. Here all week at a political festival called almedalen, politicans, academics, the civil society, and the business community comes together to meet, debate and mingle. It’s sometimes called the largest democracy party. This year though there’s been a ton of controversy because a militant neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement was given permission to attend the festival. This kicked off a firestorm of debate, with some groups boycotting and others strongly critizing and appealing the decision. It brings up many difficult questions about freedom of speech and assembly as well as protecting people from hate speech and even violence. To address these questions, we gathered a group to address these questions. We have RWI's director Morten Kjaerum. Then we have Hanna Gerdes, a lawyer who has worked for the Swedish foundation for human rights and who today works with legal advisory, advoc

In this episode, we’re speaking to Tove Dahlgren. She is the head of the educational department for a foundation called Allbright. This is a politically independent, non-profit foundation that promotes equality and diversity in senior positions in the business sector.

In our latest episode of “On Human Rights, we feature an interview from Almedalen with our Stockholm office director Malin Oud who speaks with Phil Bloomer, who is the executive director of the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre located in London. They talk about business and human rights, how business can be better at protecting human rights in their value chains and which businesses stand out.

In the middle of the Baltic Sea, the small island of Gotland in Sweden hosts an annual political gathering called Almedalen. The week-long event every July draws thousands from the political parties, different universities, civil society actors and the business world. We’ll be releasing a series of podcast interviews during the week¨to talk about a wide variety of themes, trends and issues facing the world. In today’s episode of "On Human Rights," we speak to Thomas Frostberg, an editor at Sweden’s largest newspaper, Dagens Nyheter. He runs a section called DN Global Utveckling or Global Development. This section focuses its reporting on all aspects related to the Global Goal 17 of the UN Sustainability Goals, which covers revitalising the global partnership for sustainable development.

In our latest episode of “On Human Rights,” RWI’s Senior Researcher Alejandro Fuentes interviews Professor Tove H. Malloy, who teaches at the Europa-Universität-Flensburg, Germany, and heads up the European Centre for Minority Issues’ research cluster Citizenship and Ethics. In this episode, she talks about the dynamics of minority-majority relations in Europe.

Professor Nancy Dowd’s research focuses on social justice issues connected to family law, and touches on not only family law but also juvenile law, constitutional law, race and gender analysis, and social change theories. In this episode, she talks about her recent book, which is The Man Question: Male Privilege and Subordination (2010), in which she explores masculinities theories as a means to expand gender analysis and also incorportate other hierarchies that affect gender, particularly race and class.

Morten Kjaerum, the director of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, joins us for our latest episode of the On Human Rights Podcast. He talks about his concern for the increasingly authoritarian trends worldwide, mitigating fear and angst, how the human rights world can be more active dealing with inequality, and what he’s hopeful for going forward.

Johan Hassel is the CEO of Global Utmaning, or in English, Global Challenge. This is an independent think tank that promotes long-term solutions to crises and challenges. Hassel is also a member of the Swedish Delegation for the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

In this episode of "On Human Rights," RWI’s Leila Fall interviews Maryam al-Khawaja. She’s a Bahraini Human rights defender living in exile.

Ted Piccone is a senior fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy and Latin America Initiative in the Foreign Policy Program at Brookings Institution in Washington DC. He also served eight years as a senior foreign policy advisor in the Clinton administration.

RWI’s Leila Fall recently interviewed Yeonmi Park, a 23-year-old human rights activist from North Korea. When she fled that country in 2007 it was just the beginning of a long journey through the Gobi Desert. She faced starvation, threats, and human trafficking. Today, she wants to spread awareness about the North Korean situation as well as to protect refugees who might have faced situations like hers.

Jan Eliasson’s resume is as extensive as it is impressive. Amongst other tasks for the Swedish state, he acted as minister for foreign affairs in 2006 and was the Swedish ambassador to the U.N for several years. He has served as Special Envoy to Darfur, Sudan and as President of the UN general assembly. In March 2012, Jan Eliasson was appointed Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations by Secretary- General Ban Ki Moon. The RWI spoke to him about the future for human rights, the secrets to a successful mediation and why he considers himself a worried optimist.

Today we have a special episode from MR-dagarna (Swedish Human Rights Forum) in Malmö, with Alice Wadström from the RWI who is interviewing Cynthia Enloe, a professor known for her work on gender and militarism.

Leyla-Denisa Obreja, a visiting scholar at the RWI and a PhD candidate at Bond University in Australia, whose area of research is intimate partner violence, talks about her project

In our latest episode of "On Human Rights", Alice Wadström sat down with Jude Dibia, a novelist from Nigeria, during the Swedish Human Rights Forum in Malmö, Sweden in November.

Today we have a special interview from MR-dagarna (Swedish Human Rights Forum) in Malmö, with Alice Wadström from the RWI who is interviewing Anders Kompass from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kompass worked for the United Nations for a period of 20 years at the end of which he was suspended for exposing the sexual abuse of children by peacekeepers to relevant authorities that led him to be suspended. After being cleared by a panel of inquiry at the request of Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon, Kompass resigned from the UN.

Lund University and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute just launched a new human rights research hub. It’s one of Europe’s biggest research environments for human rights related issues. At the launch of the hub, Anne Orford delivered the keynote speech. We’ll play it here in its entirety. Anne Orford is the visiting chair of human rights and humanitarian law at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute. She is also Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Michael D Kirby Chair of International Law at Melbourne Law School (MLS)

RWI's senior researcher Radu Mares recently interviewed Kari Tapiola, Special Adviser to the Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Dr Nuno Ferreira is a Professor of Law at the University of Sussex, and is Deputy Director of the European Children's Rights Unit, the ECRU. Among other areas, he has worked in LGBT rights, refugee law, and children's rights with a focus on child labour. He was recently awarded a €1 million European Research Council Starting Grant in order to produce a comprehensive analysis of refugees seeking asylum in Europe based on sexual orientation and gender identity.