Scandinavia and the 1968 International Year for Human Rights

ABSTRACT

The article explores the Scandinavian countries’ contributions to the United Nations’ 1968 International Year for Human Rights (IYHR) based on archival research in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. It traces how the three countries launched national campaigns to commemorate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and participated in the International Human Rights Conference in Tehran. This engagement with the IYHR occurred at a time when the Scandinavian countries were elevating human rights concerns in their diplomacy as part of a new foreign policy activism. The article demonstrates that the commemoration campaigns spawned numerous activities to raise awareness of human rights issues and spurred reflection on the state of human rights at home and abroad. At the Tehran conference, the Scandinavian countries failed to strengthen international protection of human rights as the concerns of Global South countries dominated the agenda. The analysis confirms two general aspects of the Scandinavian approach to human rights: their emphasis on mutual coordination and their preference for robust civil society involvement. The article concludes that the comprehensive national commemoration campaigns facilitated broad civil society engagement with human rights, but that the IYHR did not transform Scandinavian human rights policies.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights
• Scandinavia
• United Nations
• civil society
• diplomacy

Introduction

The year 1968 is often described as one of the most tumultuous in world history. The landmark year contained a wealth of dramatic events: the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, the Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, and waves of protest, social unrest, and youth movements. Perhaps this explains why histories of 1968 virtually never mention that the year was also the United Nation’s (UN) International Year for Human Rights (IYHR). The IYHR was defined by two core initiatives: a global campaign to commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the International Human Rights Conference in Tehran.¹

Drawing on research in the archives of the ministries of foreign affairs in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, this article examines how the Scandinavian countries engaged with IYHR.² First, it explores the three national campaigns to commemorate the UDHR, including their organizational structure, objectives, and activities. Second, it investigates the Scandinavian countries’ role at the International Human Rights Conference in Tehran. Finally, it concludes by assessing the Scandinavian contributions to the IYHR and how these should be understood within the history of Scandinavian human rights policy.

In recent years, historians of human rights have rediscovered the IYHR and particularly the Tehran conference.³ Rejecting the conventional narrative that the conference was a failure, Roland Burke argues that it represented a historical shift in the evolution of the international human rights project: ‘Tehran was the culmination of a shift from the Western-inflected concept of individual human rights exemplified in the 1948 Universal Declaration to a model that emphasized economic development and the collective rights of the nation’.⁴ Steven Jensen contends that the IYHR should be seen from two perspectives: a culmination of a UN process initiated in 1962 and as a bridge between the international human rights efforts of the 1960s and 1970s.⁵ Looking at the United States, Sarah Snyder argues that the IYHR was a missed opportunity to heighten U.S. foreign policy attention to human rights and notes that it demonstrated the limited appeal of UN-centred human rights activism to Americans.⁶ Ned Richardson-Little shows how the IYHR acted as a catalyst for the genesis of state socialist conceptions of human rights in the Eastern Bloc, where governments used the commemoration to legitimize status quo in Eastern Europe and attack Western imperialism.⁷ Taken together, the scholarship demonstrates that the IYHR represented a pivotal moment in the history of international human rights and that national responses to the event varied greatly.

The Scandinavian countries’ contributions to the IYHR, however, remain unexamined. This gap reflects the state of the larger field of human rights history, where the Scandinavian countries are conspicuously absent from a bourgeoning international historiography. When the Scandinavian countries occasionally do make an appearance in this literature, it is often through ephemeral references that tends to reproduce prevalent images of them as human rights champions.⁸ Scandinavian historians have also been slow to take an interest in human rights in the region, leaving the field to legal scholars and political scientists. For all its qualities, this non-historical research tends to be normative, generic, or theoretical with a limited empirical source base. Consequently, as argued by a group of Nordic historians, there is a profound need for ‘fine-grained empirical work documenting how Nordic human rights policies evolved over time’.⁹ Such work they argue, should aim to offer contextualized studies of the nuances and complexities in the evolution of Nordic human rights policies and politics through the study of primary sources. This article heeds this call by examining Scandinavian contributions to the IYHR. In doing so it contributes to insert the Scandinavian countries in the international human rights history.

Most historical scholarship on human rights in Scandinavian foreign policy and Scandinavian contributions to shaping international human rights during the 1960s centres on the case against Greece at the Council of Europe. Between 1967 and 1969, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway – joined by the Netherlands – brought cases against the Greek military junta to the European Commission on Human Rights, citing the use of torture and other human rights abuses. Kristine Kjærsgaard has shown that Sweden was the driving force behind the initiative and pushed for a firm approach to Greece, while Denmark and Norway were more cautious and worked to moderate Sweden’s position. Sweden, Kjærsgaard argues, was motivated by domestic public opinion and a desire to demonstrate that Swedish security neutrality did not imply ideological neutrality on human rights and democracy. Conversely, Norway’s cautiousness was shaped a desire to secure a solution at the Council of Europe in order to prevent the case from being taken up in NATO. As NATO-members, both Norway and Denmark wanted to avoid a possible Greek exclusion from the alliance.¹⁰

The public outcry against the Greek dictatorship in the Scandinavian countries also gave rise to considerable civil society engagement, resulting in cooperation between activists and governments. Matthaios Amanatiadis has shown how a network of civil society organizations, activists, and diplomats, organized in the Scandinavian Network for Democracy in Greece, lobbied Scandinavian governments to oppose the Greek regime.¹¹ Hanne Hagtvedt Vik and Skage Alexander Østberg has demonstrated how the Greek coup led Sweden to adopt a leading role the struggle against torture, motivated by a mixture of a quest for international prestige and a desire to accommodate domestic sentiment, as well as a feeling of a duty to act. They also point to the vital role that Amnesty International played in spurring the Swedish government’s anti-torture efforts.¹² The Greek case formed an important backdrop to the Scandinavian engagement with the IYHR and demonstrated that the Scandinavian countries were willing to include human rights criticism in their foreign policies with Sweden as the most outspoken.

The article adopts a Scandinavian framework because Sweden, Denmark, and Norway’s contributions to the IYHR were deeply intertwined and as such it makes sense to examine them collectively. The three countries consulted, coordinated, and collaborated extensively on how to respond to the IYHR. This aligned with previous and subsequent efforts by the Nordic countries to present themselves as a united block at the UN and other international organizations. Efforts that have generally proven successful as the countries have often been perceived as a unified group by other countries.¹³ This joint approach to the IYHR – and the UN in general – was possible because the three countries historically have shared a general foreign policy profile based on a convergence of foreign policy objectives and strategies.¹⁴

A slow start: the evolution of Scandinavian human rights activism

The Scandinavian countries played a relatively minor role in the development of international human rights in the first two decades after World War II. Contrary to their later image and self-perception as human rights champions, they struggled to adapt to the rising international importance of human rights. As shown by Steven Jensen, Danish human rights diplomacy in the 1940s and 1950s was primarily concerned with pursuing matters of self-interest, and Sweden and Norway were even less involved in human rights issues during that time.¹⁵ Denmark did, however, help secure the drafting of the European Convention on Human Rights.¹⁶ Norway was initially concerned that the Convention would become an alternative to the UN human rights system, but ultimately came to support it.¹⁷ Denmark also helped place the role of women on the UN agenda through the efforts of the diplomat Bodil Begtrup.¹⁸ Ultimately, the Scandinavian engagement with human rights in the post-war years was limited, however. As some countries from the Global South elevated the importance of human rights at the UN during the 1960s, the Scandinavian countries were supportive, but they were not frontrunners.¹⁹

The Scandinavian countries’ modest contributions to human rights in the immediate post-war era reflected their broader foreign policies at the time. As a non-aligned country, Sweden pursued a foreign policy of neutrality and caution in international affairs until the early 1960s.²⁰ Although Denmark and Norway were founding members of NATO in 1949, they did not allow NATO bases and nuclear weapons on their territories (with the exception of Greenland) and they generally kept a low international profile until the mid-1960s. Overall, their post-war foreign policies were shaped by longstanding traditions of neutrality, anti-militarism, and suspicion of great powers.²¹ Thus, while the Scandinavian countries had different treaty alignments, they all pursued foreign policies characterized by restraint and a desire to preserve international stability and peace to protect national sovereignty. Such foreign policies left little room for activism on human rights issues.

Similarly, the Scandinavian countries initially viewed the UN as an organization through which to obtain peace through collective security rather than a vehicle to advance an international legal order.²² After an initial scepticism, the Scandinavian countries became strong backers of the UN, providing the organization’s two first Secretary Generals in the shape of Trygve Lie (1946–1952) and Dag Hammarskjöld (1953–1961). Nevertheless, neither Lie, Hammarskjöld, nor the Scandinavian governments put much emphasis on human rights issues during that period.²³ Rather, early Scandinavian commitment to the UN was rooted in national security concerns for peace and stability.

However, from the mid-1960s onwards, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway gradually developed more active foreign policies that would lead them to play more prominent roles on human rights and humanitarian issues. A core component of this new foreign policy activism was a greater willingness to participate in international public debates, including by criticizing the behaviour of other countries. This was evident in both bilateral and multilateral foreign policy, but it was particularly manifest at the UN, which the Scandinavian countries began to see as a forum for shaping international public opinion – preferably through coordinated Scandinavian efforts.²⁴ The Scandinavian countries increasingly spoke out against issues like colonialism, racial discrimination, religious persecution, torture, and poverty. They also dramatically increased their development aid and demonstrated greater solidarity with the Global South. Antoine Puyvallée and Kristian Björkdal have argued that the Scandinavian commitment to humanitarianism and human rights was the result of a complicated mixture of altruism and complex branding processes that blended domestic self-presentation and identity with international reputation-building to form a humanitarian brand.²⁵

The Scandinavian foreign policy activism was shaped by – and responded to – changes in the international system. The emerging détente between the United States and the Soviet Union lessened Cold War tensions and offered small countries like the Scandinavians a greater room for manoeuvre. At the same time, the ongoing process of decolonization dramatically increased the numbers and influence of developing countries, which in 1964 formed the coalition the Group of 77. Their growing leverage was particularly evident in the UN General Assembly, where they used their numerical majority to dominate the agenda, including on international human rights.²⁶ Having long been sympathetic to the interests of developing countries, the Scandinavian countries directed much of their active foreign policy towards supporting these.

The new foreign policy activism was also a reflection of internal developments in the Scandinavian countries. In the early half of the 1960s, they had experienced a time of transition with intense societal and political changes, which resulted in a shift towards the political left among the younger generation. This was part of an international trend in several Western democracies. These domestic changes had direct foreign policy implications as the new progressivism translated into calls for greater international solidarity with the world’s poor and oppressed. Policymakers responded to this domestic opinion by expressing support for developing countries, increasing development aid, and speaking out on issues of peace and human rights.²⁷

While all three countries experienced this transition and responded through a greater activism in foreign policy during the 1960s, it was most notable in Sweden. From the mid-1960s, the Swedish Social Democratic Labour Party underwent a generational shift that turned it more progressive. Following Olof Palme’s ascension to Prime Minster in 1969, Sweden became a prominent progressive voice on the global stage, criticizing the US war in Vietnam, supporting liberation movements in the Global South, and promoting human rights and combatting poverty as a way to secure peace.²⁸ Swedish activism also reflected a greater national confidence rooted in the social and economic success of the ‘Swedish model’ and a desire to export it abroad.²⁹ In Denmark and Norway, the social democratic parties had also played leading roles in the post-war era but their dominance had been less complete than their Swedish counterparts. While Sweden took a shift to the left under Palme, Norway and Denmark were governed by centre-right coalitions from 1965 to 1971 and from 1968 to 1971, respectively. Finally, Denmark’s and Norway’s NATO membership and foreign policy traditions precluded some of the more radical aspects of foreign policy activism.³⁰

These differences aside, all three Scandinavian countries embraced a new foreign policy activism by the late-1960s that helped pave the way for an elevated role of human rights in their diplomacy. Aside from their joint complaint against Greece to the Council of Europe in 1967, they became particularly outspoken critics of racial discrimination in Southern Africa most notably through their opposition to South African apartheid.³¹ A common feature for this human rights activism was that it was primarily pursued through Scandinavian coordination and cooperation within international organizations.

‘A truly significant event of the greatest value to all people’: the 1968 international year for human rights

The idea for an International Year of Human Rights came from Jamaica at the UN General Assembly in 1962 as part of the country’s desire to intensify the UN’s efforts for human rights. During a discussion of the proposal in 1964, the UN Commission on Human Rights endorsed the idea of an international conference on human rights as part of the initiative.³² The United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom were initially sceptical of the conference, but the idea enjoyed support from several countries from the Global South.³³

The Scandinavian governments’ response to the IYHR reflected their strong preference for coordination on human rights issues. During 1967, the Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian ministries of foreign affairs held two meetings to discuss how to approach the IYHR, including opportunities for collaboration.³⁴ Simultaneously, they established national working groups and by the end of the year, they had all formed committees responsible for organizing IYHR activities. In all three countries the responsibility of running the committees was handed to the national UN associations with support from the governments and various other civil society organizations.³⁵ The Scandinavian governments thus transferred the primary responsibility for the IYHR commemoration to civil society, although as the composition of the committees show, government officials and politicians remained directly involved. This approach facilitated broad civil society engagement with human rights during 1968.

In Sweden, the committee was chaired by the president of the United Nations Association of Sweden (UNAS) Sven-Arne Stahre. UNAS’s offices served as the committee’s secretariat and UNAS secretary Lars Eriksson served as secretary of the committee’s working group. The Swedish government was represented by officials from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Swedish MFA), the Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA), and the Ministry of Justice. Swedish civil society was represented by more than thirty NGOs, including the Swedish sections of Amnesty International and the International Commission of Jurists. The working group convened seven times from 16 May 1967 to 30 January 1969.³⁶

In Norway, Supreme Court justice Terje Wold chaired the committee, consisting of representatives from three ministries and fifty NGOs. Through his career as a politician and a jurist Terje Wold had long sought to promote more robust measures to protect human rights.³⁷ The executive committee counted Ulf Underland from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norwegian MFA) and Kåre Halden, Anders J. Guldvik, and Jo Tenfjord from the United Nations Associations of Norway (UNAN), as well as representatives from the Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation, Norsk Kvinnesaksforening, and En Verden. The committee at large held three meetings, while the executive committee met ten times.³⁸

The Danish committee was headed by the chair of the Danish Joint Council for the United Nations (DJCUN).³⁹ Initially, this position was held by the conservative Member of Parliament Poul Schlüter, but in May he was since replaced by the chair of the Danish Women’s Council Edele Kruchow, who had been a representative on the Danish UN delegation from 1965 to 1967. The NGO, Mellemfolkeligt Samvirke, functioned as the committee’s secretariat. The committee also consisted of members from NGOs like Den Dansk FN Forening, Een Verden, and Kvindernes Internationale Liga for Fred og Frihed.⁴⁰

The main objective of the committees was to educate and inform the public about the UDHR and human rights. All the committees were constrained by relatively modest budgets, which made them dependent on additional financial support for their more expensive initiatives.⁴¹ This, however, did not stop them from planning a plethora of activities, including a wide range of publications, conferences, exhibits, public lectures, and media entries in the TV, radio, and newspapers.⁴² At its inaugural meeting at the Norwegian MFA on 11 December 1967, the Norwegian committee outlined a comprehensive plan on how to reach government institutions, mass media, participating organizations, schools, universities, churches, the military, libraries, and various committees.⁴³ While their activities were distributed throughout the year, the committees agreed to concentrate the bulk of their energy on two dates: United Nations Day on 24 October and the International Human Rights Day on 10 December, the anniversary of the UDHR.⁴⁴ Overall, the activities aligned with the type of events proposed by the UN.

In Norway, the IYHR got off to a flying start when King Olav V encouraged the Norwegian people to support the IYHR and the efforts of the Norwegian committee in his annual New Years Address on 31 December 1967.⁴⁵ The King also agreed to serve as the committee’s patron and attended its main events. One of these took place on United Nations Day on 24 October, where the committee arranged a televised gala performance at the National Theatre in Oslo with speeches on human rights by the Swedish cabinet minister Alva Myrdal and Terje Wold. Another prominent event was the annual Nobel Peace Prize ceremony on International Human Rights Day, 10 December, which in 1968 was awarded to the French lawyer, René Cassin, for his human rights work.⁴⁶

In Denmark, one of the key events of the IYHR was the Christiansborg Seminar on Human Rights at the Danish Parliament on 9–10 March. Organized by the DJCUN as part of the Danish committee’s activities, the seminar brought together politicians, experts, and representative from 54 civil society organizations. In his opening address, the recently appointed Prime Minister Hilmar Baunsgaard from the Danish Social Liberal Party proclaimed that ‘the respect for human rights is the inner core of democracy’.⁴⁷ As Steven Jensen has observed, the speech illustrated how the official Danish approach to human rights had become more principle-based by 1968 compared to previously.⁴⁸

The conference also exhibited debates on the relationship between civil and political rights and economic and social rights as well as the issue of implementation. Stressing the centrality of civil and political rights in the UDHR and the Danish Constitution, Baunsgaard recognized that these could not be enjoyed ‘without a certain degree of economic and social safety’. However, he admonished, human rights lost their practical utility if they could not be turned into legally enforceable rules.⁴⁹ Fanny Hartmann from the Ministry of Social Affairs, argued that economic and social rights were now accepted as equals to traditional liberties in principle but acquiesced that they were lacking in practical implementation.⁵⁰ The law professor and diplomat Max Sørensen argued that some economic and social rights like the right to education and health care had universal application, but pointed out that others like the right to paid vacation were pointless for millions of people in non-industrialized countries.⁵¹ The official Mogens Hasdorf closed the conference by declaring that the IYHR ‘marks a truly significant event of the greatest value to all people’.⁵² There could be no doubt that Danish policymakers, at least in principle, ascribed considerable importance to the IYHR and the human rights it commemorated.

The Swedish committee also held an event at the Swedish Parliament, when it co-organized an international conference on torture with Amnesty International on 23 August 1968, which brought together 240 participants from thirteen countries.⁵³ The conference was part of an emerging international movement to ban torture in which Sweden came to play a leading role. In March, the Scandinavian countries had added torture to their complaint against Greece and over the summer Amnesty International had published two reports on the junta’s use of torture.⁵⁴ In her opening remarks at the conferences, Alva Myrdal stressed the Swedish government’s support for the abolition of capital punishment and a ban on torture. A former chair of UNESCO’s social section and the author of several texts on women’s rights, Myrdal made the IYHR the starting point of her speech, noting the significant progress on human rights since the adoption of the UDHR.⁵⁵

High-level conferences were only a small part of the committees’ commemoration campaigns, however, which included on a wide range of activities of varying scopes, reflecting the interests of the different groups involved. Some were carried out by the committees through the UNAs, others by participating NGOs. Some were new activities launched specifically for the IYHR, others were modulations of existing activities to fit the IYHR campaign. The activities also covered a broad range of topics that engaged human rights from different vantage points. Several groups utilized the IYHR as framework for activities to further their specific goals. For instance, the Norwegian chapter of the Anti-Slavery International held events focused on slavery.⁵⁶ Thus, while the core events most closely linked to the IYHR were carried out by the committees, there was a large undergrowth of related activities carried out through a decentralized process.

In all three countries the UNAs published and distributed educational materials to schools and organizations. In Norway, the UNAN created a new human rights course and adapted its regular education programmes in colleges and teachers’ schools to focus on human rights. It organized study activities and distributed educational materials on human rights to schools and private organizations and held a study contest that was mentioned in approximately 100 newspapers. The UNAN also published a booklet of curricula on human rights of which 25,000 copies were distributed to over fifty organizations.⁵⁷ The UNAS produced educational materials for students from elementary school through high school.⁵⁸ The head of the Swedish Board of Education encouraged everyone in the Swedish school system to take advantage of the IYHR to draw attention to human rights. According to a report by the Swedish committee, this resulted in special lectures on human rights in many schools for which UNAS educational material was used.⁵⁹

The Swedish committee was particularly productive when it came to publications through the UNAS. Its publications included the reports ‘1968 – de mäskliga rättigheternas år’ (90,000 copies) explaining the purpose of the IYHR and ‘Allmän förklaring om de mäskliga rättigheterne (60,000 copies) that gave an introduction to human rights.⁶⁰ The Danish committee published an introduction to the UDHR and the human rights conventions as well as book on the Christiansborg Seminar on Human Rights.⁶¹

The committees organized numerous conferences and seminars on the human rights issues throughout the year and around United Nations Day and International Human Rights Day. As the list of UNAN seminars reveal, these covered a broad range of issues, including human rights and women, hunger, refugees, development aid, education, family planning.⁶² Aside from organizing its own conferences, the UNAS also participated in human rights conferences together with the SIDA, the Swedish National Commission for UNESCO, Amnesty International and others.⁶³

The IYHR commemorations also included more creative activities like quizzes, exhibitions, and various campaigns to draw attention to human rights. Together with the Norwegian Armed Forces, the Norwegian committee ran an intensive information campaign between United Nations Day and the International Human Rights Day that commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the UDHR. The campaign involved the distribution of 10,000 pamphlets and posters and concluded with a televised quiz. According to the committee’s final report, the campaign contributed to increased interests in other IYHR events.⁶⁴ Libraries and museums ran exhibitions on human rights issues and in Norway 4,000 posters with the symbol of the IYHR were put up in post offices, railway stations, and kiosks. A Swedish company created a poster with the text of the UDHR in Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and English that was sold through the UNAs and bookstores.⁶⁵ The Bishop of Oslo and the Church of Norway also got involved in the commemoration, appealing to clergymen to contribute to the IYHR by referring to human rights in their sermons.⁶⁶

The IYHR activities got considerable media coverage with TV, radio, and newspapers devoting attention to human rights issues throughout the year. Swedish television commemorated the IYHR by dedicating programmes to human rights issues, including a special broadcast for schools as part of the United Nations Day.⁶⁷ The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation transmitted several programmes in connection with the IYHR, covering the history of human rights, the human rights covenants, and the relationship between Christianity and the UDHR.⁶⁸ In all three countries the UNAs circulated articles about the IYHR to newspapers. In Sweden famous authors wrote articles on human rights requested by the UNAS.⁶⁹ The IYHR campaigns coincided with a considerable increase in newspaper mentions of the term human rights. This was particularly noticeable in Norway, where there was a noticeable spike of 1,034 mentions in 1968 up from 524 the previous year and back down to 606 the following.⁷⁰ Denmark and Sweden witnessed similar albeit less pronounced spikes.⁷¹ In all three countries, 1968 represented the highest number of mentions since the years surrounding the drafting of the UDHR.

The committees were quite positive in their evaluations of their campaigns. The Swedish committee concluded that because of its activities:

Many persons have been made familiar with the idea of human rights and that this has undoubtedly led to a deeper interest in the efforts of the United Nations to further the ideals laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.⁷²

Moreover, the UNAS observed that measured on publications, publicity, and public engagement the IYHR was markedly more successful than a similar campaign on the international year of collaboration three years earlier.⁷³

The IYHR also stimulated interest in signing and ratifying human rights conventions in several countries, including the Scandinavian, which adding their signatures to the two human rights covenants.⁷⁴ The UN resolution from 1963 that designated 1968 as the IYHR expressed the hope that the year would encourage member states to intensify their human rights efforts.⁷⁵ After the General Assembly adopted the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) on 16 December 1966, increasing the number of signatories of these became an official objective for the IYHR.⁷⁶ Sweden signed both covenants on 29 September 1967, while Denmark and Norway did so as part of the IYHR.

The process behind the Danish and Norwegian signatures demonstrates how the Teheran Conference speed up the process. On 12 February 1968, an official at the Danish Mission to the United Nations wrote a memo to the Danish MFA, which warned, ‘It strikes me as unfortunate if Denmark had not signed the conventions at the start of the conference’.⁷⁷ The official therefore recommended that the issue of signatures was discussed with the Norwegians as quickly as possible. Officials from the Danish MFA had previously expressed concern to their Norwegian counterparts, that Denmark did not end up in a situation where it was the only Scandinavian country not to have signed the covenants. The two countries therefore agreed to sign the covenants simultaneously and ahead of the Teheran Conference, which they did on 20 March.⁷⁸ The signing of the human rights covenants was an explicit goal of the Norwegian committee.⁷⁹ At a meeting in May, the designated officials for Nordic legal cooperation agreed to convene in Copenhagen in November to discuss how to proceed with ratification of the ICCPR and the ICESCR.⁸⁰ At its last meeting, the Norwegian committee decided to encourage ratification of the covenants.⁸¹ The covenants were subsequently ratified by Sweden in 1971 and Norway and Denmark in 1972. The Teheran Conference thus helped speed up Norway’s and Denmark’s signing of the covenants based on their understanding that the failure to do so would hurt their credibility on debates on human rights. Although the tone of the IYHR in Scandinavia was mostly self-congratulatory and most criticism of human rights abuses was directed outward, it also contained some critical self-assessments of the domestic human rights records. As a lead-up to the IYHR, a regional section of the UNAN hosted a debate titled ‘Let’s cultivate our own garden’ in December 1967. Speakers at the debate pointed to the Sámi minority, people with disabilities, and women as groups within Norwegian society facing discrimination. Supreme court attorney Alf Nordhus argued that a new school law, which stipulated that children should be raised in the Lutheran-evangelical faith, was in violation of the UDHR’s article 26.⁸² The debate also resulted in an op-ed in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, which argued that Norway should devote the IYHR to supplement its criticisms of human rights violations abroad with a reckoning with its domestic shortcomings.⁸³ In her speech at the seminar at the Danish Parliament in March 1968, Fanny Hartmann offered a similar inward gaze, noting that Danes tended to view human rights violations as a problem confined to developing countries and dictatorships while thinking that the Danish record was spotless. Yet, she argued, Denmark had several shortcomings on economic and social rights such as, for instance, the right to employment and equal pay for men and women.⁸⁴

Similarly, Alva Myrdal in her 24 October speech in Oslo, argued that for the IYHR to be meaningful all countries had to ‘genuinely examine our own actions’ and assess whether these live up to the promises made.⁸⁵ She proceeded to identified multiple imperfections in Scandinavian societies, pointing out how poor people, women, and people with disabilities faced limitations with regards to various human rights. And while she focused most of her remarks on racial discrimination abroad, calling it ‘the plague of our time’, she also found time to admonish against domestic discrimination of ethnic minorities and the need to eliminate racial discrimination in educational materials.⁸⁶ While Myrdal located the worst human rights violations abroad, she was very willing to acknowledge flaws at home.

The international human rights conference in Tehran

The main event of the IYHR took place far away from Scandinavia when representatives from 84 countries convened in Tehran from 22 April to 13 May 1968 for the UN’s first international human rights conference. When the UN General Assembly took the initiative to the conference in 1965, the stated objectives were threefold: review progress on human rights since the adoption of the UDHR, evaluate the effectiveness of the UN’s methods in the field of human rights, and formulate a programme for further measures.⁸⁷ In practice, however, the conference took a different direction and focused overwhelmingly on issues of racial discrimination and apartheid as well as colonialism. The developing countries, which dictated the agenda of Tehran, had little interest in the human rights conventions, monitoring, or enforcement of human rights.⁸⁸ Instead, they used the conference to attack the UDHR and individual human rights, leaving delegates from Western countries as well as the Soviet Union marginalized and sulky. As such, Tehran manifested the new Global South approach to human rights, which emphasized economic development and anti-colonialism at the expense of individual human rights.⁸⁹ In the Eastern Bloc, the conference acted as a catalyst for the genesis of state socialist conceptions of human rights.⁹⁰ In the West, most governments and human rights activists were quick to deem the conference a failure.

The leadup to the Tehran conference revealed considerable Western alarm about the conference agenda.⁹¹ The Scandinavian countries were no exception to this. An internal memo from the Norwegian MFA from December 1967 expressed concern about the inclusion of anti-colonialism on the agenda, fearing that this might give the conference an undesirable political leaning.⁹² Western countries also fought developing countries and the Soviet Union over the participation of NGOs at the conference. Sweden and Norway were among the strongest advocates for the inclusion of these, arguing that such NGOs were at the forefront of the struggle for human rights.⁹³ Ultimately, very few human rights NGOs participated in the conference, and they were not afforded the right to speak.

The Scandinavian countries demonstrated their willingness to stand up for human rights in their approach to the preparations to the conference. In the run-up to the conference, Western countries held a series of consultations, where they considered two reform proposals designed to strengthen the UN human rights system: the establishment of a High Commissioner for Human Rights and a Human Rights Council on par with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). These proposals, however, were eventually abandoned as Western governments became convinced that the Global South majority would turn such reforms against them.⁹⁴ Norway participated in one of the first meetings on 14 February 1968, but subsequently boycotted the meetings together with Sweden and Denmark in protest of the participation of Greece, which the Scandinavians were running a human rights complaint against at the Council of Europe.⁹⁵ Denmark and Norway since joined some of the later meetings where Greece was not invited. Through this boycott the Scandinavian countries demonstrated that they were willing to make diplomatic sacrifices in the name of human rights.

Despite their international solidarity with the Global South, the Scandinavian countries generally lined up with the Western position ahead of the conference. An internal Swedish memo from 19 April noted that although the developing countries’ concerns about racial discrimination and decolonization were justified, it was the Scandinavian position that such issues were better left to the UN’s political organs. Rather, the conference ought to focus on improving enforcement mechanisms through ratifications of the human rights conventions. Finally, Sweden took a particular interest in women’s rights, banning capital punishment and humanitarian aspects of family planning.⁹⁶

The Scandinavian delegations to Tehran consisted primarily of diplomats, some of whom had considerable human rights expertise, but they lacked representatives from the highest levels of government. The Swedish delegation was headed by Ambassador to Yugoslavia Agda Rössel along with the embassy secretary from the Swedish UN-delegation Per Olof Forshell and Tage Pousette from the Swedish Embassy in Tehran.⁹⁷ The Danish delegation was headed by Ambassador to Iran Frederik de Jonquières along with Ole Espersen from the Ministry of Justice, and District Court Attorney Hermod Lannung, who had been among the speakers at the human rights seminar at the Danish Parliament and had been a representative on the Danish UN delegation for decades.⁹⁸ The Norwegian delegation was likewise headed by the country’s Ambassador to Iran Thorleif Paus. He was joined by the conservative Member of Parliament and chair of the Norwegian National Women’s Council Astri Rynning and the head of the legal office in the Norwegian MFA Ulf Underland.⁹⁹ According to the Swedish delegation, the collaboration among the Scandinavians at the conference was ‘exquisite and confidential’.¹⁰⁰

After a week of plenary discussions, the conference split into two committees. The first committee covered colonialism, racial discrimination, apartheid, and slavery, while the second dealt with long list of issues such as women’s rights, family planning, illiteracy, education, war crimes, and human rights implementation among other things. Lannung was elected as Vice-Chairman of the first committee but like most other Western countries, the Scandinavian delegations generally kept a low profile. Denmark, for instance, only co-sponsored two uncontroversial resolutions on human rights in armed conflicts and a recommendation for governments to take note of the decisions at Tehran.¹⁰¹ In a special message to the conference, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Torsten Nilsson expressed his hope that the IYHR would ‘be a milestone in deed as well as in name’.¹⁰² A memo from the Swedish delegation to the Swedish MFA noted that Sweden hoped to obtain this by strengthening the machinery for the implementation of the conventions. In particular, Sweden would like to see the establishment of regional human rights commissioners under the authority of a High Commissioner for Human Rights or a world court on human rights.¹⁰³ However, neither of these initiatives were discussed at any length at Tehran.

The conference concluded with the adoption of the Proclamation of Tehran and twenty-nine resolutions on issues like economic development, self-determination, racial discrimination, apartheid, Israel, and human rights in armed conflicts. The Proclamation was a compromise drafted by the Iranian delegation following two divergent proposals by the Soviet Union and the United States. Taken together the resolutions constituted a significant expansion of human rights to reflect the concerns of the developing countries.¹⁰⁴ Yet, neither of them contained concrete answers on how to secure human rights protections and implementation and they required the formal endorsement of the UN General Assembly to carry weight.

Despite their general solidarity with developing countries, the Scandinavian countries were firmly in the Western camp at Tehran. This did not go unnoticed. After the conference, the Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Unity, Diallo Telli, expressed his dissatisfaction with Sweden’s voting at the conference to the Swedish ambassador to Ethiopia Carl Bergenstråhle. Describing Sweden as otherwise ‘one of Africa’s best friends’, Telli was particularly frustrated by Sweden’s decision to abstain on votes condemning apartheid. Sweden’s position was even more disappointing given that Norway and Denmark voted more favourably from an African perspective, according to Telli.¹⁰⁵ Agda Rössel, however, rejected the criticism in an internal Swedish memo, arguing that it represented a political ploy on Telli’s part. She also noted that, contrary to Telli’s comments, the Scandinavian countries had in fact voted in unison, and that this was not the first time that Telli had blamed Sweden for ‘doing the bidding of the Western powers’.¹⁰⁶ In a memo to Bergenstråhle, the Swedish MFA explained that Sweden abstained because it did not believe the conference had the authority to impose the economic sanctions that the resolution on apartheid called for and concluded that ‘our position in Teheran was in no way a deviation from our policy at the UN’.¹⁰⁷ The vote on apartheid exemplified how the Scandinavian countries were united and aligned with other Western countries, most of which also abstained.

Contrary to a rather dismissive attitude towards the Tehran conference in most Western countries, the Scandinavian countries were somewhat more positive in their assessments. In an internal memo, the head of the Danish delegation, Ambassador de Jonquières, noted that although a considerable part of the conference had been used on ‘fruitless discussions’ on the relationship between Israel and the Arab countries, the conference had produced ‘several resolutions on important issues within the area of human rights’.¹⁰⁸ One of the resolutions that the Scandinavian countries singled out as the most promising concerned the role of human rights in armed conflicts.¹⁰⁹ In a newspaper article, Astri Rynning from the Norwegian delegation argued that although the conference had been dominated by political disputes, a silver lining had been a broad consensus on the importance of improving women’s position in society.¹¹⁰ Per Olof Forshell from the Swedish delegation was even more positive. During discussions in the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee on 27 November, he took issue with critiques that the conference had not exhausted its mandate. According to Forshell, the conference was never intended to deliver binding solutions to specific problems but rather meant to serve as a catalyst for new ideas and initiatives. Based on this assessment, Forshell explained, ‘the Swedish government regarded the achievements of the Conference as a positive and most constructive contribution to United Nation’s work in the field of human rights for years to come’.¹¹¹ Sweden also introduced a resolution, co-sponsored by among others Norway and Denmark, that expressed appreciation for the conference’s contribution to human rights and endorsed the Tehran Proclamation.¹¹²

Conclusions

The Scandinavian countries responded to the IYHR by launching comprehensive campaigns to commemorate the UDHR, which facilitated wide-ranging civil society engagement and spawned a broad range of activities to raise awareness of human rights issues in Scandinavian societies.¹¹³ The Norwegian and Danish governments used the occasion to sign the two human rights covenants ahead of the Teheran Conference, after Sweden had signed them the previous year, and in all three countries the IYHR coincided with deliberation over their ratification. Scandinavians also used the IYHR to take stock of the state of human rights around the world as well as to reflect on the records of their own countries. Most Scandinavians participating in this reflection perceived their societies as being frontrunners on human rights, although there were also room for self-criticism. Taken together, the commemoration campaigns represented an increase in Scandinavian engagement with human rights.

The IYHR also presented the Scandinavian countries with an opportunity to practice international human rights diplomacy at the Tehran conference. However, they were not able to secure better human rights standards and more effective international protection of human rights. The main reason for this was not a lack of priority from the Scandinavian governments, but rather due to the marginalized position of the Western countries at the conference. Despite their failure to have a decisive impact on the conference outcome, the Scandinavians were relatively positive in their assessment of the conference.

On a general level, the Scandinavian contributions to the IYHR confirmed two key aspects of their approach to human rights. First, it underlined the Scandinavian preference for mutual coordination and cooperation in human rights diplomacy. Before and during the Tehran conference they coordinated closely to reach joint positions and managed to present themselves as a unified group. A similar alignment took place among the national committees overseeing the commemoration campaigns and the Norwegian and Danish governments coordinated their signing of the human rights covenants. Second, the IYHR highlighted the Scandinavian countries’ preference for a robust civil society involvement on human rights issues. This was evident in the commemoration campaigns, which was primarily carried out by civil society groups with government support. It also shone through in their international diplomacy, as the Scandinavians governments advocated forcefully for the inclusion of NGOs at the Tehran conference.

In the Scandinavian countries, the IYHR was far from a missed opportunity to heighten foreign policy attention to human rights, as Snyder observes about the United States.¹¹⁴ Unlike, the American committee, the Scandinavian committees started their planning early and enjoyed solid political support from their governments. Whereas the American response to the IYHR demonstrated the limited appeal of UN-centred human rights activism to Americans, the Scandinavian response highlighted the opposite. It underlined that Scandinavians, whether in governments or in civil society, looked to the UN as the primary venue for human rights promotion.

However, the Scandinavian response to the IYHR did not represent a catalyst for new conception of human rights like Richardson-Little shows occurred in the Eastern Bloc.¹¹⁵ Although the Scandinavian countries used the IYHR to deliberate the balance between civil and political rights and economic, social, and cultural rights, this did not lead to a fundamental shift in their approach to human rights. Rather, these deliberations underlined that the Scandinavian countries were firmly aligned with in the dominant Western concept of individual human rights. Moreover, the IYHR did not constitute a transformation of Scandinavian human rights policy. The more comprehensive Scandinavian embrace of human rights as a core element of their foreign policies only occurred later in the 1970s and 1980s.¹¹⁶

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank former colleagues at Human Rights Studies at Lund University for their valuable feedback and comments on an earlier draft of the article. The author would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the two anonymous peer-reviewers for their constructive engagement with the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the European Commission [841332].

Notes on contributors

Rasmus S. Søndergaard

Rasmus S. Søndergaard is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. His research on U.S. foreign policy, democracy promotion, and Scandinavian human rights diplomacy has been published in journals like Diplomatic History, International Politics, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Journal of Cold War Studies, and Diplomatica. He is the author of Reagan, Congress, and Human Rights: Contesting Morality in US Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2020). He holds a PhD in history from the University of Southern Denmark and has previously held positions at Lund University and Georgetown University.

Notes

1. For the origins of the initiative and the important role of Jamaica, see Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights, 77–101.

2. In this article the term “Scandinavian” is limited to Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.

3. Burke, Decolonization; Whelan, Indivisible Human Rights; Burke, “‘How Time Flies’,” 394–420; Thompson, “Tehran 1968 and Reform,” 84–100.

4. Burke, “From Individual Rights to National Development,” 276.

5. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights, 176.

6. Snyder, “The 1968 International Year for Human Rights,” 831–58.

7. Richardson-Little, “From Tehran to Helsinki,” 180–201.

8. See, for instance, Glendon, A World Made New; Whelan, Indivisible Human Rights; Iriye et al., The Human Rights Revolution; Eckel and Moyn, The Breakthrough; Eckel, The Ambivalence of Good.

9. Vik et al., “Histories of Human Rights in the Nordic Countries,” 194.

10. Kjærsgaard, “Confronting the Greek Military Junta,” 51–69.

11. Amanatiadis, “The Scandinavian Network for Democracy in Greece”.

12. Vik and Østberg, “Sweden, Amnesty International and Legal Entrepreneurs.” See also Demker Dans på slak lina; as well as the forthcoming anthology Kornetis et al., The 1969 “Greek Case” in the Council of Europe.

13. Götz, Deliberative Diplomacy.

14. Marcussen, “Scandinavian Models of Diplomacy,” 240–3.

15. Jensen, “Evolving Internationalism,” 252–70. For a similar assessment of Norway’s human rights policy, see Gjerdåker, “Norsk menneskerettspolitikk,” 199–217.

16. Jensen, “Evolving Internationalism,” 255–6.

17. Brathagen, “Competition or Complement to Universal Human Rights?,” 15–25.

18. Midtgaard, “Bodil Begtrup and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” 479–99.

19. Jensen, “Evolving Internationalism,” 269. Importantly, the countries of the Global South harboured a range of positions on human rights and did not act as a monolith on the issue.

20. Bjereld et al., Sveriges Säkerhet, 21–4.

21. Villaume, Allieret med Forbehold; Riste, Norway’s Foreign Relations; Tamnes, Oljealder.

22. Götz, “Prestige and Lack of Alternative,” 73–96; Engh, “The Conscience of the World,” 68.

23. King and Hobbins, “Hammarskjöld and Human Rights,” 337–86; Ravndal, “’A Force for Peace’,” 443–59.

24. Bjereld et al., Sveriges Säkerhet, 255–60; Jakobsen and Kjærsgaard, “Den Danske FN-Aktivismes Storhed og Fald,” 381–4; Jakobsen, “The United Nations and the Nordic Four,” 281–93.

25. Puyvallée and Bjørkdahl, Do-Gooders and the End of Aid, 3–4.

26. Burke, Decolonization; Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights.

27. Pedersen, “Denmark’s Bilateral Aid, 1962–1991,” 183–223; Ekengren and Götz, “The One Per Cent Country”; Engh, “The Conscience of the World?,” 65–82.

28. Ekengren, “How Ideas Influence Decision-Making,” 117–34; Ekengren and Götz, “The One Per Cent Country,” 34–9. For Sweden’s support for Algerian independence as an early example of Swedish activism on colonial issues, see Demker, Sverige och Algeriets frigörelse.

29. Ottosson, Svensk Självbild under Kalla Kriget, 24–40.

30. Gebhard, “Scandinavian defence and alliance policies,” 254–68.

31. Gleijeses, “Scandinavia and the Liberation of Southern Africa,” 324–31.

32. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights, 78–81.

33. Ibid., 87.

34. ASMFA, 1953–74, HP 48, Y b534, f30. Letter, Norwegian MFA to Swedish MFA, 23 February 1968 (referencing meeting on 13 April 1967); ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 4. Memo, “Møde i arbejdsudvalget for Menneskerettighetsåret,” 5 December 1967 (referencing a meeting in the fall).

35. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 4. Memo, Komiteen for Menneskerettighetsåret, “Konstituerende møte i Den Norske Komite for Det Internasjonale År for Menneskerettigheterne 1968,” 11 December 1967; ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1264, f 26.8/10b bd 3. Rapport, Svenska FN-förbundet, “Rörande förberedelser för upplysnings- och undervisningsverksamhet i Sverige med anledning av det internationella året för de mänskliga rättigheterna,” November 1967; ADMUN, 1947–1971, 119.L.22a.3, Box 259, Memo, the Danish MFA, 6. November 1967.

36. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f37. Svenska FN-förbundet, ”1968: De mänskliga rättigheternas år. En rapport”.

37. Torheim, “In the Intersection of Politics and Law”.

38. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 4. Memo, Komiteen for Menneskerettighetsåret, “Konstituerende møte i Den Norske Komite for Det Internasjonale År for Menneskerettigheterne 1968,” 11 December 1967.

39. Danish Joint Council for the United Nations (Dansk Samråd for de Forenede Nationer) was an umbrella organization of roughly thirty NGOs. In 1970, it fused with Den Danske FN Forening and Een Verden to form the Danish United Nations Association (FN-forbundet).

40. ADSFN, 1948–1973, 1, Folder: møder, Meeting Minutes, 2 Maj 1968.

41. The Swedish committee had a budget of 50.000 SEK in addition to the UNAS budget, while the Danish committee had a budget of 77.000 DKK. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1264, f 26.8/10b bd 3. Letter, Danish Embassy in Norway to Norwegian MFA, 9 November 1967; ADMFA, 1946–1972, Box 119 Q2/2, Report, Den Danske FN-Forening, 20 June 1968.

42. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f37. Report on IYHR; ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1264, f 26.8/10b bd 3. Protocol from meeting, 8 February 1968.

43. Ibid., Y b534, f30. Norwegian report on plans for IYHR.

44. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 4, Memo, “Møte i Arbeidsutvalget for Menneskerettighetsåret 1968,” 8 February 1968; ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1264, f 26.8/10b bd 3. Rapport, Svenska FN-förbundet, “Rörande förberedelser för upplysnings- och undervisningsverksamhet i Sverige med anledning av det internationella året för de mänskliga rättigheterna,” November 1967.

45. King Olav V’s New Years Address, 12 December 1967, https://www.kongehuset.no/tale.html?tid=71650.

46. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Report on the celebration of the International Year for Human Rights 1968 in Norway.” For René Cassin, see Winter and Prost René Cassin and Human Rights.

47. Opening Address by Prime Minister Hilmar Baunsgaard, Christiansborg-Seminaret om Menneskerettighederne, 5. The seminar was originally planned for January as kick-off event for the IYHR but was postponed due to the Danish elections. ADSFN, 1948–1973, 1, Folder: Korrespondance. Letter, Poul Schlüter to Forretningsudvalget, 5 January 1968.

48. Jensen, “Evolving Internationalism,” 269.

49. Christiansborg-Seminaret om Menneskerettighederne, 5–6.

50. Ibid., 28–9.

51. Ibid., 9.

52. Ibid., 32.

53. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights, 198.

54. Vik and Østberg, “Sweden, Amnesty International and Legal Entrepreneurs,” 638.

55. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f33, Speech, Alva Myrdal, 23 August 1968.

56. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Rapport om feiringen av Menneskerettighetsåret 1968 i Norge”.

57. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Rapport om feiringen av Menneskerettighetsåret 1968 i Norge”.

58. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f37. Svenska FN-förbundet, ”1968: de mänskliga rättigheternas år. En rapport”.

59. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b534, f29. Svenska FN-förbundet, “Swedish activities in connection with the International Year for Human Rights,” 30 January 1968.

60. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f37. Svenska FN-förbundet, ”1968: de mänskliga rättigheternas år. En rapport”.

61. ADSFN, 1948–1973, 1, Folder: møder, Meeting minutes, 14 April 1969.

62. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Rapport om feiringen av Menneskerettighetsåret 1968 i Norge”.

63. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f35. “Rapport til FN om svenska verksamheten under internationella året för mänskliga rättigheterna”.

64. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Report on the celebration of the International Year for Human Rights 1968 in Norway”.

65. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Rapport om feiringen av Menneskerettighetsåret 1968 i Norge”.

66. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Report on the celebration of the International Year for Human Rights 1968 in Norway”.

67. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f35. “Rapport til FN om svenska verksamheten under internationella året för mänskliga rättigheterna”.

68. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5. “Report on the celebration of the International Year for Human Rights 1968 in Norway”.

69. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f35. “Rapport til FN om svenska verksamheten under internationella året för mänskliga rättigheterna”.

70. Search in Nasjonalbiblioteket’s database for Norwegian newspapers, https://www.nb.no/search?mediatype=aviser.

71. Search in Det Kongelige Bibliotek’s database for Danish newspapers, http://www2.statsbiblioteket.dk/mediestream/avis.; Search in Kungliga Biblioteket’s database for Swedish newspapers, https://tidningar.kb.se.

72. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f35. “Rapport til FN om svenska verksamheten under internationella året för mänskliga rättigheterna”.

73. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b536, f37. Svenska FN-förbundet, ”1968: De mänskliga rättigheternas år. En rapport”.

74. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights, 177.

75. General Assembly Resolution 1961 (XVIII) of 12 December 1963 (Designation of 1968 as International Year for Human Rights) https://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/1961(XVIII).

76. Several countries heeded this call and by the end of 1968, there nineteen signatories on each of the covenants. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights, 207.

77. ADMUN, 1947–1971, 28.B.3, Box 39. Memo, the Danish MFA, 12 February 1968.

78. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1268, f 26.8/11 Bd 11. Memo, 25 September 1967; ADMUN, 1947–1971, 28.B.3, Box 39. Memo, the Danish MFA, 12 March 1968.

79. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b534, f30. Norwegian report on plans for IYHR.

80. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f32. Letter, the Danish Ministry of Justice to the Swedish MFA, 6 August 1968.

81. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 5.

82. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1268, f 26.8/11 Bd 11. News article Aftenposten, 11 December 1967.

83. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1268, f 26.8/11 Bd 11. News article Dagbladet, 12 December 1967.

84. Christiansborg-Seminaret om Menneskerettighederne, 28–9.

85. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f33. Speech, Alva Myrdal, 24 October 1968.

86. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f33. Speech, Alva Myrdal, 24 October 1968.

87. UN General Assembly, A/RES/2081(XX) https://undocs.org/en/A/RES/2081(XX).

88. Whelan, Indivisible human rights, 150–1.

89. Burke, “From Individual Rights to National Development,” 275–96; Burke, Decolonization, 92–7; Moyn, Last Utopia, 2.

90. Richardson-Little, “From Tehran to Helsinki,” 180–201.

91. Thompson, “Tehran 1968 and Reform,” 84–100.

92. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1264, f 26.8/10b bd 3. Memo, Norwegian UN-Delegation, 1 December 1967.

93. ADMUN, 1947–1971, 119.L.22a.3, Box 259. Memo, Danish UN-Delegation, 29 December 1967.

94. Thompson, “Tehran 1968 and Reform,” 84–100.

95. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1265, f 26.8/10b bd 4. Letter, Norwegian UN-delegation to Norwegian MFA, 15 February 1968.

96. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b534, f30. Memo, 19 April 1968.

97. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f34. Svenska delegationens rapport, “1968 års Teherankonferens för de mänskliga rättigheterna,” 1968.

98. ADMUN, 1947–1971, 119 L 22a3.2, Box 260. Letter, Danish MFA to the Danish Mission to the United Nations, 15 March 1968.

99. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, L1264, f 26.8/10b bd 3. Norwegian MFA memo for Ulf Underland, 6 January 1968. The Norwegian MFA deemed it a priority to include a woman in Norway’s delegation.

100. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f32. Memo, Agda Rössel to Swedish MFA, “Teherankonferenses efterspel,” 29 July 1968. See also: ADMUN, 1947–1971, 119 L 22a3.3, Box 260. “Rapport fra den norske delegasjon til Den internasjonale konferanse om menneskerettigheterne,” 1968.

101. Denmark, Folketingstidende 1968/69, appendix B, column 1640. https://www.folketingstidende.dk/ebog/19681B?s=1639#.

102. Final Act of the International Conference on Human Rights, Tehran, 22 April to 13 May 1968, UN Doc: A/CONF/32/41, 40.

103. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b534, f30. Memo, From the Swedish delegation in Tehran to the Swedish MFA, 29 April 1968.

104. Whelan, Indivisible Human Rights, 144–6.

105. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b534, f31. Letter, Carl Bergenstråhle to the Swedish MFA, 7 June 1968.

106. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f32. Memo, Agda Rössel to the Swedish MFA,”Teherankonferenses efterspel,” 29 July 1968.

107. ASMFA, 1953–1974, HP 48, Y b535, f33. Letter, Swedish MFA to Carl Bergenstråhle, 23 August 1968.

108. ADMUN, 1947–1971, 119.L.22a.3.2, Box 260. Memo, Ambassador to Iran Frederik de Jonquières, 15 May 1968.

109. Jensen, The Making of International Human Rights, 206; ANMFA 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, 1266, bd 1. Memo, Norwegian MFA, 28 September 1968.

110. ANMFA, 1960–1969, RA/S-6794, 1266, bd 1. Astri Rynning, “Kvinnes stilling – et lyspunkt i Teheran,” 1968.

111. UNGA Third Committee, summary records of meeting, A/C.3/SR.1621, 1.

112. General Assembly Resolution 2442 (XXIII) of 19 December 1968 (International Conference on Human Rights) https://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/2442(XXIII).

113. While the article demonstrates the national campaigns’ efforts to raise awareness of human rights, it does not prove, or aim to prove, a measurable increase in human rights awareness in the public.

114. Snyder, “The 1968 International Year for Human Rights,” 831–58.

115. Richardson-Little, “From Tehran to Helsinki,” 180–201.

116. Vik and Østberg, “Deploying the Engagement Policy”; Kjærsgaard, “International Arenas and Domestic Institution Formation”; Søndergaard, “Scandinavian Diplomacy on Human Rights”.