Do not be afraid to go to the peripheries of society

Ideas for improving human rights research in Finland

Stefan Kirchner
University Lecturer for Fundamental and Human Rights
Faculty of Law, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland

This text is the manuscript for a panel statement at the Human Rights seminar on the occassion of the 30th
anniversary of the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law at the Arctic Centre of the University
of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. The final statement which was actually made at the seminar deviated
slightly from this manuscript in order to avoid overlaps with earlier speakers, take into account earlier
statements and in order to ensure brevity.

Thank you for the invitation. There are a lot of overlaps between my own work and what is
happening here at NIEM, for example when it comes to indigenous rights, although I am
coming from a different direction. My professional background is in human rights litigation
in Strasbourg and before the Inter-American Court government advisory work in maritime
environmental law.
As a consequence my own research is very much problem oriented and one positive
aspect of human rights research in Finland is that there is already a lot of practically
oriented research happening here and I think that one thing the academic community in
Finland does fairly well is to have a good balance between theoretical and practical human
rights research. There are already many strengths here in this regard, I am thinking about
the HuS Arctic Kamrul, Gerald and Anna are working on, to mention just one example. An
other strength is the involvement of stakeholders, which is already happening in the
context of indigenous rights.
I am not going to suggest specific topics because in a quickly changing world we will have
to deal with issues we can hardly imagine today. Rather, Id like to put the focus on the
term HUMAN in human rights. At the end of the day we have to remember why we do this.
Not just to get an other research grant or to get one more publication. Indeed not even to
serve justice as an abstract idea. We do this for people.
Practical research can also mean making sure that information reaches those who need
it. That can mean publishing in the Saami languages or by providing consultation to
practitioners who are not familiar with international human rights law. This can include
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judges, law makers and so on. This is our regular audience. But it includes also those who
might not even be aware of their rights.
But I believe that we have to go a step further. I think that the overall goal is for our work to
have an impact, to make a difference. In so far legal research is much more abstract than
many other fields of work. I believe that it could give human rights research in Finland a
boost if its impact were more visible. But this is also in our own hands. When I moved to
Finland it was explained to me that sisu involves working both harder and smarter. It is
not enough to work harder and to be more creative, to be at the cutting edge of research.
Researchers need the courage to take on unpopular issues. As lawyers we can hide
behind books but Elina mentioned that we have to do crazy stuf. We have to go out
there, get out of our comfort zone.
We are at the periphery of the world in terms of geography but very much at the heart of
things when it comes to research. Human rights are particularly important to those who live
at the periphery of society, who are marginalized. If we want human rights research to be
whole, holistic, if you want, then we have to take into account the needs of those who are
not popular, those who have been widely ignored by society. But that also means thinking
outside the box, for example thinking about cross-border and horizontal effects of human
rights. Many issues which are not seen as human rights issues today might actually be
human rights issues.
We have heard a lot about interdisciplinarity. This does not just mean working with
people from other fields, it also means that lawyers have to learn about the reality of the
people our work affects. If you research indigenous rights in Finland you need to have at
least a basic understanding of fishing and reindeer herding, when you research
immigrants rights you have to understand how hidden xenophobia works here, when you
research cross-border social rights, you have to understand the impact a decision to cut
development aid has, I am thinking for example about the recent decision by the Finnish
government to cut support for children hospitals in Burkina Faso. Whatever your topic is,
we have to go out there to see the impact of human rights decision. We already heard that
we need more cooperation and more communication, but we also need more open
mindedness. This will take time and energy but it is necessary in order for us to do a good
job.
Human rights research can be a trademark, a lighthouse product of Finnish legal
sciences. There is already a lot happening here, especially taking into account the small
size of the country in terms of population and the number of law faculties. I dont think that
there is any other country of 5 million people with the same kind of academic output in
human rights research.
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Finnish legal research cannot be at the top in everything, but we can build on our strengths
and turn Finnish human rights research into a brand. There are only a few places in
the world which play a disproportionate role in terms of contributions to international law.
Finland is not in the same position as the Netherlands or Switzerland, which benefit from
the presence of many international institutions in The Hague and Geneva, respectively.
Finland has a lot of potential in this regard.