Human Rights and Peace-Building
The research project was planned as a 3,5-year research project and was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation. The research project was embedded in an innovative partnership between two institutions, The Centre for Resolution of International Conflicts (CRIC), University of Copenhagen and the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR).
THE PROJECT IS CLOSED
Project period: 2015-2020
Principal Investigator (PI): Ole Wæver
The main research focus of the project was:
- Generating new knowledge on the relationship between peacebuilding and human rights. Questions include
- How can human rights and peacebuilding be conceptualised and devised as mutually reinforcing processes and what factors impact the dynamic relation between them?
- How does the politics of human rights and peace-building play out at the level of global and national governance, and how does this impact the space for social change?
- How can the cause-effect relationship be researched in complex environments?
The main objective of the project was:
- To seek to enhance our understanding of how international actors can most effectively engage in conflict affected countries in order to strengthen processes of human rights and peacebuilding
The particular contribution of the research project was a focus on the linkages between human rights and peacebuilding in relation to state building and concepts of ‘state fragility’ and to consider development assistance and diplomacy as one of the factors that impact on and are impacted by the intersection of human rights and peacebuilding.
A major part of the work was carried out by three PhD-students and two Post-Doctoral research fellows who are experienced practitioners in relevant areas, notably human rights and peacebuilding, access to justice, state building, development assistance, etc. These researchers/practitioners brought in extensive knowledge about conflict affected countries, human rights and peacebuilding challenges and efforts in the field, and gaps in current research. Various senior scholars from CRIC and DIHR also contributed to the project. The outputs included three PhD dissertations, three book projects and four international seminars.
Mie Roesdahl’s PhD examined processes of social change and political agency in relation to human rights and peace-building. The central aim was to show how the processes and mechanisms of engagement of different actors in promoting human rights compliance of the state have implications for the success of other human rights efforts as well as for sustainable peace-building. The research studied the dynamic relations and discourse development among different sets of actors when engaging on human rights and peace-building agendas such as reporting in the Human Rights Council and establishment of transitional justice mechanisms. The project assumed a complex interplay between local and international politics and between local and international discourses on human rights and peacebuilding – and this shapes the playing field for developing and implementing policies, strategies and mechanisms for human rights and peacebuilding in a given conflict affected state.
Michelle Parlevliet did in her post doc research publish a book on the basis of her PhD dissertation with the title “Embracing concurrent realities – revisiting the relationship between human rights and conflict resolution”. She also, together with Mie Roesdahl, co-edited a special journal issue on human rights and peace-building.
The first international seminar within the project was held from 16th to 18th of November 2015. The seminar examined the sometimes conflicting, sometimes complementary relationship between human rights and peace-building including the way human rights has been addressed in peace negotiations as part of broader peace processes and in constitutional processes. The seminar brought together numerous researchers, policy makers and practitioners from Denmark and abroad, including Professor of Constitutional Law Christine Bell, Professor of International Law & International Relations Chandra Lekha Sriram, Senior Human Rights Officer Ben Majekodunmi from the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General, Senior Constitutional Expert Rohan Edrisingha from the UN Department of Political Affairs, and Senior Analyst Alan Keenan from International Crisis Group.
