HRJust, a Horizon EU Funded project, examines how States use Human Rights Justifications to explain and defend their actions and decisions.
About the Project and the Themes
About the Project
Coordination
Intersect Observatory
The project’s focus is when States use HRJust to justify decisions and actions. This Project aims to respond to the role of the EU as a Global actor in the defense and promotion of democracy and human rights in accordance with article 2 TEU. Human rights regimes today operate on the presumption that only individual persons can be in possession of human rights, however, States often justify their behavior through human rights justifications. This situation is under regulated by international, regional or national regimes. In other words, significant and important gaps in human rights regulations have been identified, which this project seeks to address.
University of Gothenburg, Sweden is the coordinating Institution of HRJust.
What we study:
– How States use human rights to defend their actions and decisions.
– How to respond to human rights justifications.
– How to hold States accountable when using human rights justifications.
– How this affects the role of EU as a global actor in the defence and promotion of democracy and human rights in accordance with Article 2 TEU.
The Serious Question is what happens when:
the horizontal human rights justifications and the vertical human rights justifications reinforces each other in a systemic favoring of the interest of the State over the interests of the individual?
The Intersect Observatory collects the findings of the HRJust Project and aims to ensure a continuous information flow by disseminating the relevant materials in the form of working papers, policy outputs and web interviews. A dedicated resources and materials section will be developed to the benefit of a wide range of stakeholders. The Observatory is meant to promote discussion and dialogue on human rights justifications through work-in-progress seminars on emerging issues, inclusive democracy, gender and intersectionality.
HRJust & Theory
HRJust & COVID
HRJust & Migration
HRJust & Climate
HRJust & Empirical Cross-cutting
HRJust and Theory will develop a theoretical framework for understanding States use of human rights to justify their actions and decisions. This to map and explain what gaps in the individual human rights protection that appears when States themselves becomes human rights actors, instead of recipients of human rights claims.
Workpackage 4 – HRJust and COVID will examine how Sweden, Finland and Taiwan related to Human Rights frameworks when describing and explaining their COVID strategies and policies. This is a cross national collaboration between Taiwan and Finland.
Workpackage 5 – HRJust and Migration will explore how States affected by geopolitical events, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine also affects the way human rights are used to justify polices and decisions concerning migration.
HRJust and Climate will explore the role of the EU as a global actor in the field of climate change and its extraterritoriality to be synthesised together with a geopolitical lens and a gender and intersectionality.
Work Package 7 – the Empirical Cross-cutting work package, will analyze and synthesize all the empirical data collected by the three thematic Work Packages (COVID-19, Migration and Climate) against the theoretical framework. The data will be evaluated through the lenses of sociology, anthropology and law, and recommendations will be formulated based on solid empirical observations.
News
Climate Change and Human Rights, WP6
Prof. Elisa Fornalé of WP6 attended the NY Climate Week to introduce our project to important partners and stakeholders as the Brazilian Climate Observatory, the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law and the Grandparents campaign. Prof. Fornalé also gave a seminar on Climate Change and Human Rights at the University of Palermo, from 27 until 29 November.
WTO – YOUTH TRADE SUMMIT ON GENDER
On 13-14 November Federica Cristani, Senior Researcher Dr. at Centre for International Law, IIR, was invited in Geneva at the World Trade Ogranization to the Youth Trade Summit on Gender to give a presentation in the Technical Assistance Conference on Trade and Gender, discussing gender and international investment policies (WP6-WP7).
The event was organized by the WTO Gender Research Hub, to which Prof. Elisa Fornalé, who was also in Geneva, is a member.
HRJUST – THEORY
In October 26-27, Prof. Ester Herlin-Karnell of WP3 held a successful workshop with her team in Rome.
Ayelet Banai, Enzo Rossi, Claudio Corradetti Nikola Schmidt, Johanna Gipperth, Aravind Ganesh and Ester Herlin-Karnell participated during the two days event.
IIAS Team Wins Horizon Europe Grant for Human Rights Research
Associate Research Professor Shun-Ling Chen and Assistant Research Professor Ya-Wen Yang at Institutum Iurisprudentiae (IIAS), as part of an international consortium (HRJust), have been awarded a €3 million Horizon Europe grant. Led by Professor Maria Grahn-Farley from Göteborgs Universitet in Sweden, the consortium consists of 29 researchers from 15 institutions and is expected to complete the project in Spring 2026.
Partners
HRJust 