An interview with the initiators of the Human Rights Forum
- Maša Recek
- May 15, 2017
- 7 min read
After Thursday's session on Antarctica and common heritage of mankind, we sat down with H.E. Ms Petra Hren, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Sweden to the United Nations and H.E. Ms Ilina Dimovska, Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations, head of Mission of the Regular session of the General Assembly who are the initiators of the Human Rights Forum and are eagerly working on the agenda item no. III – Diversity Management (DM).
The Interceptor: Being the initiatiors behind the Human Rights Forum, what principles lay behind your decisions and what are the main goals and principles of this establishment?
H.E. Ms Dimovska: Canada and Sweden have been talking about establishing a coalition or a forum for quite a while, due to a long historical partnership in the arena of human rights (HR) and are very keen on maintaining the level of respect with regards to this field. We have established the forum to invite all the countries that share this vision about maintaining and increasing the level of respect of HR and have also established a Coalition of Promotors of Human Rights for those purposes only, and to make sure that HR will be respected at all times during this simulation.
The Interceptor: Which countries were invited to this coalition and what was the criteria for inviting them?
H.E. Ms Hren: To the Coalition of promotors of Human Rights we have invited all the countries, even though some countries are lacking in the criteria that Sweden and Canada have set, but we believe much can be achieved with good practices.
H.E. Ms Dimovska: We agree, we have started this Coalition with the countries we have a long history of cooperation and we consider them as our allies. We, Canada and Sweden are the initiatiors, but we have had the help of Finlad and Norway, and Japan – as a country that is aspiring to achieve more on the area of HR and DM.
H.E. Ms Hren: Our current foreign policy is based on feminism with which we're trying to achieve the notion of achieving equality of the sexes within the international system. This means not only gender equality, but also age equality, race equality, but we're mostly focusing on gender equality. Sweden is very pleased with the high number of female representatives currently in the simulation of the General Assembly, but we can see that in reality females are underrepresented in the General Assembly. We're not striving towards achieving more rights for female population over male, we are simply striving for equality, equal rights. In the current times it is needed to give women more voice, but that is not because we think women are more deserving of these rights, we simply believe we are all equally deserving of these rights.
H.E. Ms Dimovska: As we believe you already know Canada is one of the most diverse countries in the world, we are accepting refugees, we are accepting a lot of different ethnicities and also have a high number of indigenous peoples. We are striving for equality, inclusiveness and straight forward and reasonable policies which we will try to push forward in the diversity management agenda. The goal is to assist where the assistance is needed, to see what we can do, where and how we can also improve, because we realize we are not 'perfect' in this sense. We will be comprehensive and flexible, accept the differences that countries have, but also be very firm and strict when it comes to maintaining the minimum level of protection of HR.
H.E. Ms Hren: Sweden sees diversity as an asset, not as a burden or a problem. The society within Sweden is diverse and this is one thing we're very proud of, and in this matter we can say our society is an integrated one. As our national policies have in the past and today brought success with dealing with DM, we are willing to offer our good practices and service to other countries who are willing to work on this matters. We would like to add that seeing diversity in the international community should be seen as an asset as well and we should not impose different practices to countries who are not willing to accept them. We are trying to prevent countries from imposing the western ideologies to those countries that are not willing to accept these practices. We would like to see the system as a diverse, with a high level of respect towards HR protection.
The Interceptor: Which issues in particular do you believe might pose the greatest challenge in terms of managing these issues and getting a consent with all the countries within the General Assembly?
H.E. Ms Hren: We believe sharing of the responsibility is crucial. If the countries are willing to do this we can prevent many problems, that may arise in the future. From what we've seen this far, small and big powers are reserved when it comes to dealing with the issue of refugees. Many countries believe dealing with minorities should be resolved on the national level, however this should be transfered to an international arena to ensure the highest possible level of security for minorities and the majority including the areas such as migration, gender equality, race equality, nondiscrimination etc. in general, every right that concerns a person as an individual within a society.
H.E. Ms Dimovska: We perceive the biggest problem to be the disctinction between the national jurisdiction and the processes that are evolving on the international level, where we will strive for flexibility within the policies, but as said before, a minimum standard is very important and it can only be upgraded. We know some countries will try to establish a clear line between national and international, and it's nothing wrong with doing so, however we must find a middle ground.
H.E. Ms Hren: We wish to act as mediators and not as actors who want to force our national jurisdiction and our good practices in the national systems of other countries. We wish to find middle ground between the most diverse countries in the world and show what we all can do when we strive for cooperation, and we sure hope a resolution will be passed.
The Interceptor: In which ways can we expect cooperation in finding the solutions and the so called 'middle ground'? In what ways will you try to achieve this? How will you handle the big differences of perceiving HR with regards to the West – where an individual is the forefront and for example Asia – where community is given more importance.
H.E. Ms Dimovska: We're planning on doing this on the basis of cooperation, meaning we are regularly, if not daily organizing a lot of meetings and we're talking with countries, for them to see where we stand and likewise. We, the Canadians, we have a high number of Asian minorities within our country, therefor our relations with the Asian countries are very good and we hope to incorporate their values and hopes in this agenda.
H.E. Ms Hren: We wish to state how important it is to listen to each other. Countries must listen and must try to understand each other as this are the first steps towards finding the middle ground and towards enhancing respect of HR even more. We are ready to listen to each country that is willing to cooperate and that is willing to upgrade the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which we hope we will achieve with this Resolution.
The Interceptor: The diversity management being such a broad and diverse topic, how do we decide where to start?
H.E. Ms Dimovska: We start from zero – non-discrimination. It's a foundation on which we have to build. As we have mentioned before, we will listen to wishes and opinions of other countries, share our good practices and policies and offer assistance – whether in the form of financial help or any other capacities we posses.
The Interceptor: The UDHR has already laid the foundations of HR, so how can we build on it and which areas in particular still need to be improved or better regulated?
H.E. Ms Dimovska: With the way the international system is changing today and the way the societies and communities within this system are changing, that is something the UDHR did not forsee. The Declaration did not forsee so many mixed communities and so many flows of migration we have today, so non-discrimination has to be emphasized daily.
H.E. Ms Hren: DM is all about managing the diversity and when the UDHR was written the extent of globalization and diversity was not seen in such big flows as it can be seen today. This broad topic has a lot of levels and in our country we have connected education and business with DM and this is how we tackle the issues that arise in all of these areas, so starting with early education and raising the awareness a lot of issues are preventable.
The Interceptor: Would you say that education is the primary field where we have to focus our attention to raise awareness and also to prevent more problems from arising?
H.E. Ms Dimovska: Surely, we are definetely working on putting the education on the top list of our priorities and finding ways on how to include education in this field. Hopefully this will be done coherently, alongside with the countries that still need a lot of guidance when it comes to DM.
The Interceptor: Do you think you will face many difficulties on your way to achieving a document that will upgrade the current system, but will still benefit all? As we can see from the UDHR it was intentionally set very broad and it can be interpretend in the way countries would like to interpret it.
H.E. Ms Dimovska: We believe we will face many obstacles that may arise at any time and anywhere.
H.E. Ms Hren: As we could see from the previous session on the topic of Antarctica, no matter what countries say, when it comes to working and making progress, things usually don't go the way we would expecet them to. As said before we will do our best job to work as mediators, we would like to invite all countries to enter the session with an open mind and readiness for cooperation.
H.E. Ms Dimovska: We understand and value differences and we are ready to hear some stiff and non-negotiable opinions, but we hope and ask for an open-mindedness and coherence. This particular topic has a lot of influence on all of us at this particular moment, we are not talking about the future, but today.
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