Abstract
In the 1970s, United Nations debates on human rights and economic inequality were deeply shaped by the New International Economic Order (nieo) advocated by the developing countries and the basic needs development strategy championed by the World Bank and the United States. This article uses archives from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway as well as UN records, to examine the contributions Scandinavian diplomats and policymakers made to these debates. It demonstrates that the Scandinavians took a favorable position on both the nieo and basic needs, viewing them as complementary strategies to realize economic and social human rights. This view matched their activist foreign policies centered on UN diplomacy, human rights, and Global South solidarity. Finally, the article argues that the Scandinavian position reflected and was underpinned by a broad conception of human rights that put economic and social rights on an even footing with civil and political rights.
Addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) on September 29, 1977, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Karin Söder proclaimed, “The ultimate aim of the new international economic order is to create a just and equitable world. This is also the ultimate aim of our struggle for human rights.”1 The New International Economic Order (nieo), which Söder referred to, was a series of proposals by postcolonial states calling for systemic changes in the international economy to improve the position of the Global South relative to the Global North. Simultaneously, the World Bank and the United States advocated a more modest proposal to address the economic situation in the Global South by reducing poverty through the so-called basic needs development strategy. By the time of Söder’s speech, both proposals and their supposedly tense relationship were central to UN debates on human rights and economic inequality.
This article offers a history of Scandinavian contributions to UN debates on the realization of economic and social rights in connection to the nieo and the basic needs strategy in the 1970s. Based on recently declassified archival sources in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway as well as UN records, the article examines Scandinavian diplomats’ and policymakers’ contributions to debates on the relationship between human rights and economic inequality in the context of the nieo and basic needs. The article demonstrates that the Scandinavians took a favorable position on both concepts as vehicles to promote economic and social rights. Moreover, unlike the two concepts’ main proponents, the Scandinavians viewed the two as complementary rather than competing strategies. Finally, the article argues that the Scandinavian position reflected and was underpinned by a broad conception of human rights that put economic and social rights on an even footing with civil and political rights.
The article makes three contributions to the existing scholarship. First, it helps address the surprising lack of archival-based historical studies of Scandinavian human rights policy. The international human rights historiography by historians offers only ephemeral mentions of the Scandinavian countries, and the existing non-historical scholarship is often purely theoretical and lacks a basis in historical contexts and sources.2 A contextualized understanding of the historical role of human rights in Scandinavian diplomacy is therefore much-needed. Second, the article helps correct an imbalance in human rights historiography, which has focused overwhelmingly on the category of civil and political rights while largely neglecting the coequal category of economic, social, and cultural rights.3 Addressing this imbalance helps correct a flawed understanding of the history of human rights in international politics.4 Third, the article highlights the role of multilateral human rights diplomacy in the history of Scandinavian internationalism. While scholars have written extensively on Scandinavian internationalism, including on Global South solidarity, peacekeeping, and development aid, their human rights diplomacy, defined as the use of negotiation and persuasion to obtain human rights improvements, has received less attention.5 Given the frequent assertions of the Scandinavian countries as human rights role models, an examination of the actual historical record of their human rights diplomacy is warranted.
Human Rights and Economic Inequality in a Globalized World
The breakthrough of human rights and the emergence of the nieo and basic needs in the 1970s occurred during a time of dramatic changes in international geopolitics.6 In the realm of the Cold War, superpower confrontation gave way to a lessening of tensions through the process of détente, which also paved the way for human rights activism in East-West relations aimed at undermining the Soviet Union.7 Simultaneously, countries in the Global South increasingly asserted their influence on international affairs in the wake of decolonization. Much to the dismay of the West, the developing countries used their growing numbers to dominate the UN agenda, particularly on international human rights, where they elevated collective goals of development and national liberation at the expense of individual rights.8 For a moment, the combination of détente and decolonization appeared to shift the international fault line from the East-West conflict to a widening North-South divide.
The international economy was also disrupted as capitalism became increasingly globalized and an economic crisis replaced the long post-war economic boom in the West. Offset in part by the 1973 oil crisis, the economic crisis seemed to signal a reconfiguration of global power in favor of the Global South. While most Western countries were hit by high inflation, unemployment, and slow economic growth, several developing countries experienced high growth rates. Yet, this growth was not enough to compensate for increasing economic inequality between the Global South and the Global North. Meanwhile, unequal distribution of growth meant that poverty and inequality within countries in the Global South were rising as well.9 Tragedies like the world food crisis of 1972–75 drew global attention to the dangers of poverty. The decade also saw a transition away from a belief in the nation-state as the main actor in the political economy towards a growing trust in the free market economy as the best means of solving political and social problems.10 The abandonment of the Bretton Woods system in 1971 deregulated money internationally, which stimulated the growth of international finance and made trade more unpredictable.11 These developments formed the backdrop for the North-South discussion on human rights and economic inequality.
This economic globalization was accompanied by what can be described as a globalization of the mind. As pointed out by Roland Burke, the ascendency of the nieo and the breakthrough of human rights activism in the mid-1970s occurred in a period when Western intellectual and political currents ran to the global.12 The growing interdependence – the phrase for globalization at the time – shaped an emerging global conscience and a sense of a shrinking world. This coincided with the emergence of a transnational civil society structured around ngo s and movements on the environment, women’s rights, and human rights seeking to influence international organizations and national governments.13 This globalization of the mind in a shrinking world with an expanding transnational civil society constituted an important framework for discussions on economic inequality, social justice, and human rights.
In this geopolitical landscape, the nieo emerged as the most radical initiative to reform the international economy. Building on ideas previously raised by the Non-Aligned Movement, developing countries called for a nieo to improve their economic position vis-a-vis the industrialized countries. The nieo agenda sought to address economic inequality among countries through structural changes that would bring about greater distributive justice. Essentially, it aspired to complete the political process of decolonization by transforming the governance of the global economy to redirect more of the benefits of globalization toward developing countries.14 The core of the nieo was the Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order and the associated Programme of Action adopted at the Sixth Special Session of the General Assembly in May 1974 and the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (cerds) passed at the General Assembly in December 1974.15 At first, pursued through the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (unctad), the nieo was not initially concerned with human rights issues. Yet it percolated into human rights debates where the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (unchr) embraced its implementation as a precondition for the realization of economic and social human rights.16
The concept of basic needs offered another way of thinking about economic inequality and human rights than the nieo. Originally conceived as a development strategy by the International Labor Organization (ilo) in 1969, multiple institutions elaborated on the concept over the mid-1970s. The central premise was that growth should not be seen as an end but rather as a means to fulfill basic needs.17 In acknowledgment that growth had failed to address poverty, World Bank President Robert McNamara embraced a basic needs approach to ensure redistribution with growth. The objective was to secure minimum core standards to help the world’s worst off. Thus, it focused on sufficiency rather than more comprehensive redistributive justice.18 In essence, the World Bank sought to distract attention from nieo demands for far-reaching structural reforms in favor of a much more limited campaign to eradicate extreme poverty.19
The nieo agenda and the concept of basic needs can thus be juxtaposed as representing two opposing approaches to economic inequality and human rights. The nieo approach held that undoing the structural injustice underpinning economic inequality constituted a prerequisite for the realization of economic and social rights. This could be described as a preventive, comprehensive approach to human rights realization focused on the collective rights of groups and states. Conversely, the basic needs approach advocated that the best way to secure economic and social rights was to focus on alleviating the worst deprivation. This could be described as a reactive, minimal approach to human rights realization centered on individual rights. While the nieo approach was concerned with equality and distributive justice among countries, the basic needs approach focused on sufficiency and minimum obligations for individuals within countries.20
Foreign Policy Activism, Human Rights, and International Solidarity
The Scandinavian countries responded to the changes in international politics in the early 1970s by adopting increasingly activist foreign policies. After two decades of neutrality policy characterized by caution and restraint, Sweden gradually embraced a more active foreign policy from the mid-1960s onwards.21 Although as nato members they were not formally neutral, Norway and Denmark had also pursued postwar foreign policies shaped by longstanding traditions of neutrality, anti-militarism, and suspicion of great powers.22 Yet by the late 1960s, they too ramped up their international engagements. A core tenet of the new foreign policy activism was a more outspoken UN diplomacy.23 Early Scandinavian enthusiasm for the UN had been driven by national security assessments of the organization as a means to secure peace through collective security.24 By the late-1960s, however, this was supplemented by a more idealistic vision of the UN as a forum for shaping international public opinion – preferably through joint Scandinavian action.25 Scandinavian UN activism was thus motivated by a combination of largely overlapping national interests and ideals.26
Simultaneously, the Scandinavian countries increasingly contemplated the role of human rights in both their bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, mirroring a trend in other liberal democracies like the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands.27 Their contributions to the development of international human rights had been relatively minor in the post-war years. Steven Jensen, for instance, has demonstrated that Danish human rights diplomacy from 1948 to 1968 was primarily concerned with pursuing matters of self-interest.28 During the 1970s, however, the Scandinavian countries became vocal critics of human rights abuses like religious persecution, racial discrimination, torture, and capital punishment. This human rights criticism was primarily articulated within the UN, whereas Scandinavian diplomacy within East-West relations was carefully calibrated not to let human rights issues derail détente.29
The Scandinavian countries also increased their commitment to social justice, economic redistribution, and solidarity with the Global South through diplomacy and development aid.30 Up until the late-1960s, solidarity with the Global South in the arena of UN diplomacy had mostly been limited to rhetorical support for decolonization, as the Scandinavian countries were careful not to antagonize the colonial powers. The Swedish voting record at the UN between 1946 and 1969, for instance, demonstrates a markedly pro-colonial attitude.31 However, as the developing countries rose in numbers and influence within the UN, this began to change and during the 1970s the Scandinavian countries often sided with the Global South and even supported liberation movements.32 Similarly, the Scandinavian countries dramatically increased their previously negligible development aid in response to international and domestic pressure.33
Importantly, this Scandinavian commitment to humanitarianism was not purely an act of altruism but rather the result of a complex branding process that blended domestic self-presentation and identity with international reputation-building to form a humanitarian brand.34 In other words, by supporting human rights and social justice the Scandinavian countries sought to construct an image of themselves as humanitarian superpowers that served to legitimize their foreign policy at home and give them status abroad. The commitment to humanitarianism was also furthered by internal Scandinavian competition, as Sweden, Denmark, and Norway struggled to position themselves as the most prominent member of the group and were conscious not be perceived as the lagging behind the others.35
Scandinavia, the nieo, and Human Rights
Thus, by the time the nieo agenda began to shape discussions of the realization of economic and social rights, the Scandinavian countries had adopted active foreign policies centered on the UN, human rights, and international solidarity. Along with the Netherlands, they constituted the core of the informal group of so-called Like-Minded Countries, which tended to be more sympathetic to Global South demands than other Western countries.36 Overall, the Scandinavian countries were relatively positive towards the nieo agenda and actively sought to position themselves as bridge-builders between the Global South and the West.37 Their support was motivated by international solidarity and perceived self-interest. First, they thought the international economic system was fundamentally unjust and ought to be replaced by a more equal distribution of wealth. Second, they believed that economic inequality and poverty in the Global South constituted a threat to their own interests in a world community characterized by mutual interdependence.38
Despite this shared overall approach to the nieo, there were differences within the Scandinavian camp with Sweden the most enthusiastic, Denmark the most skeptical, and Norway somewhere in the middle.39 On the cerds, Sweden voted in favor together with the developing countries, Norway abstained, and Denmark voted against together with the United States, the United Kingdom, and West Germany.40 Preferring a joint position but ruling out a yes-vote, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (nmfa) tried in vain to craft a Scandinavian consensus around abstaining.41 In the Norwegian vote explanation, deputy permanent representative to the UN Jan Arvesen expressed sympathy for the general principles in the cerds.42 Denmark had also initially leaned towards abstaining, as recommended by the Danish UN delegation, but Minister of Foreign Affairs Ove Guldberg from the center-right party Venstre forced through a no vote. The decision, however, resulted in fierce domestic backlash.43 When the UN passed a resolution on the implementation of the cerds the following year, Denmark chose to abstain, while Norway joined Sweden in voting yes.44 These positions repeated themselves with moderate variation in voting on subsequent nieo proposals.45 Gradually, however, the Scandinavians converged as Denmark began to offer stronger rhetorical support, and Sweden and Norway moderated their enthusiasm somewhat.46
The argument that the nieo was important for the realization of economic and social rights likewise resonated with the Scandinavian countries. Simultaneously with the nieo debates in unctad, the developing countries had been pushing for greater attention to socio-economic development in the unchr. In 1968, the Tehran Proclamation from the first International Conference on Human Rights had identified the widening gap between the economically developed and the developing countries as an impediment to the realization of human rights.47 The following year, the unchr commissioned the Iranian lawyer Manouchehr Ganji to write a report on the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights. As part of a research tour of over 30 UN member states, Ganji visited Sweden in October 1972 to learn about the Swedish experience with the implementation of such rights. During his visit, Ganji complimented Sweden as a model country, heaping praise on the Scandinavian education and health systems.48 The Swedish hosts, however, were less impressed with Ganji. In an internal memo on the visit, the head of the legal section in the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (smfa) Love Kellberg, described Ganji as unprepared and ignorant of Swedish society. Kellberg, who knew Ganji from their service on the unchr, assessed that the broadness of the study meant that it was doomed to fail.49
Kellberg’s skepticism notwithstanding, Ganji’s report was very well received, including by Scandinavian diplomats, when it was submitted to the unchr in February 1973 and again in a revised version in January 1974.50 Focusing on both inequalities within and among countries, Ganji warned of a widening gap between rich and poor countries, which undermined the realization of the most basic human rights of the world’s poorest. Pointing to the systemic barriers to the fulfillment of human rights, Ganji criticized the relationship between developing countries and developed countries as one characterized by neo-colonialism.51 In a memo to the nmfa in July 1973, the Norwegian UN delegation argued that Norway should support Ganji’s “work and recommendations, which to a very large degree appears to overlap with Norwegian views on the issues in question.”52 The following month, the report was discussed at a joint Nordic meeting on UN issues in Copenhagen.53
In the coming years, the issues raised in Ganji’s report featured prominently on the unchr’s agenda as well as in human rights debates in the broader UN system. The unchr adopted several resolutions expressing concern about economic inequality among and within countries as obstacles to the fulfillment of human rights.54 In February 1975, it made the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights a standing item on its agenda.55 The issue also received considerable attention at the Economic and Social Council (ecosoc) as well as General Assembly meetings in 1974 and 1975, where the pressure to implement the nieo agenda was building. The unchr’s 32nd session in 1976 witnessed a forceful call for nieo implementation as a prerequisite for the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights.56 In February 1977, the unchr adopted a resolution that called for a study to explore the right to development as a human right, taking into account the nieo and fundamental human needs.57 The resolution was subsequently endorsed by ecosoc in May 1977.58 The process culminated in December 1977, when the General Assembly adopted Resolution 32/130, which affirmed that the realization of the nieo was essential for the promotion of human rights, thereby inscribing the logic of the nieo into the human rights program.59
Together with development aid, the Scandinavian countries viewed support for the nieo as their key contribution to addressing social and economic injustices in the international system and improving socio-economic conditions in developing countries.60 At a meeting in March 1975, the Nordic ministers of foreign affairs described the upcoming Seventh Special Session of the General Assembly, largely devoted to the nieo, as an important opportunity to “achieve more just and more harmonious economic relations in the world community.”61 At the General Assembly in November 1975, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme portrayed the nieo as a way to rectify “a profoundly unjust distribution of the riches of the world.”62 Moreover, internal Norwegian reports on the ecosoc sessions the same year argued that the movement towards real international equality and solidarity through the nieo was irreversible.63 The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs K.B. Andersen echoed this assessment at the General Assembly in 1976.64 The Scandinavian countries believed the nieo could – and would – help create a more just and equal international order.
Throughout this process, the Scandinavian countries expressed support for the position that economic inequality undermined the realization of human rights and they acknowledged that the nieo was an important remedy to address the situation. Favoring a broader human rights conception that went beyond the dominant focus on civil and political rights, they also welcomed the emphasis on economic and social rights generated by the nieo debate. Essentially, the nieo agenda’s emergence at the unchr helped elevate the Scandinavian countries’ preferred human rights conception and coalesced conversations about social justice and human rights. The Scandinavian countries’ support for this development was evident in public rhetoric, internal deliberations as well as voting records, where they were among the few Western countries to vote in favor of Resolution 32/130.65 As such, they demonstrated their support of nieo implementation as a precondition for human rights realization.
Echoing the debates at the unchr, the Scandinavian countries also explicitly linked nieo implementation to human rights realization in developing countries. At the General Assembly in September 1976, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs Knut Frydenlund proclaimed, “The safeguarding of human rights on a global level depends on our ability to solve the problems which arise as part of the new international economic order.”66 At the next General Assembly in September 1977, his Danish counterpart Andersen argued that there was a “close interrelationship between the work to secure respect for human rights and the establishment of a new international economic order.”67 Noting the need to improve socio-economic conditions in developing countries, a 1977-report on human rights by the nmfa stated, “the work to achieve a new economic world order will therefore become a central task also in the context of human rights in the coming years.”68 By the time the UN adopted Resolution 32/130, the Scandinavian countries shared the resolution’s observation of a direct causal relationship between nieo implementation and human rights realization.
The Scandinavian countries’ position on the nieo and human rights was shaped by their domestic values. In a UN debate in April 1975, the Norwegian delegate motivated Norwegian support for the nieo by likening it to “our national experience” with government responsibility for the equitable distribution of the fruits of economic growth.69 At an ecosoc meeting in July 1975, the Norwegian UN Ambassador Ole Ålgård expressed full support for the principles of the nieo because these were the same principles that had informed Norwegian domestic policies aimed at fostering equal opportunities.70 At the General Assembly in 1976, Frydenlund proclaimed, “We regard our commitment towards the new international economic order as a logical extension of the internal policy, pursued by successive Norwegian Governments at home, aiming at the implementation of an egalitarian concept of society.”71 To Scandinavian diplomats and policymakers the nieo resembled an international variant of the Scandinavian political economy of equality through government regulation and it, therefore, held the potential to make the world more like Scandinavia.
Scandinavia, Basic Needs, and Human Rights
Simultaneously with their support for the nieo, the Scandinavian countries also embraced the concept of basic needs, which aligned with their existing development aid strategies of prioritizing the world’s poorest. This put the Scandinavians in a curious position of supporting two, according to their main proponents, competing agendas. On the one hand, the developing countries pushing the nieo were highly skeptical of the basic needs strategy, which they feared would derail the nieo.72 On the other hand, the World Bank and the United States advocating the basic needs strategy viewed the nieo as too expensive and politically unrealistic.73 Yet, the Scandinavian countries generally supported both the structural reforms called for by the nieo and the more limited campaign to eradicate extreme poverty by securing the most basic needs of individuals.
The developing countries responded to the challenge of basic needs by seeking to directly link them to the nieo. At the ilo’s World Employment Conference in June 1976, they successfully managed to insert references to nieo demands into the conference’s action program on basic needs. The inclusion was met with stern opposition from the United States and other Western countries, but the Scandinavian countries were sympathetic. The Scandinavians also introduced an unsuccessful proposal to prioritize development aid for countries that took measures to implement the basic needs strategy.74 The attempt to link basic needs to the nieo was repeated when the General Assembly adopted Resolution 31/176 in December 1976. During the discussion, Sweden noted the Scandinavian countries’ strong support for the principles and action program from the ilo conference including the fulfillment of basic needs.75
The Scandinavian support for both agendas was based on a perception that the two agendas complimented each other because they addressed different aspects of inequality. In a report by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (dmfa) in 1977, it was argued that the nieo and basic needs were connected because the economic development pushed for in the nieo would have a positive impact on the implementation of the basic needs strategy.76 At the General Assembly in September 1977, K.B. Andersen noted that development aid served to support a new international economic order through encouraging independence and social progress and “to implement a basic needs strategy.”77 The same year, Swedish Prime Minister Thorbjörn Fälldin proclaimed, “We must continue to give strong support to the ideas behind a new world economic order while adhering to the demand for improvements for the benefit of the poor.”78 A Swedish government report noted that the nieo was concerned exclusively with relations between countries while basic needs sought to alter the socio-economic situation within countries. Accordingly, it was the Swedish position that a combination of the two agendas was needed to help the world’s poorest.79 This position dovetailed with the Swedish development aid objective since the 1960s to combat economic inequality within countries as well as between them.80
Both the nieo and basic needs agendas also helped propagate a broad conception of human rights at the UN during the 1970s that aligned with Scandinavian views that economic and social rights should be promoted together with civil and political rights.81 Although this broad conception was prevalent in the field of human rights in development aid in the 1970s, few Western countries assigned the same status to economic and social rights in their UN diplomacy as the Scandinavians. In a memo to the head of the Swedish UN delegation Olof Rydbeck in March 1974, ambassador for non-profit organizations Olle Dahlén recommended that Sweden pay greater attention to economic and social rights. Dahlén noted that Western countries – including Sweden – had tended to focus on individual political and religious rights in human rights debates in UN debates while giving less attention to the economic and social rights covered in Ganji’s report. Observing that developing countries had a greater appreciation for human rights if these were addressed in conjunction with economic and social issues, Dahlén argued that a more holistic approach to human rights would be both just and strategic.82 The nmfa presented a similar strategic argument in its 1977 report: “The work to win support for the human rights idea in the developing countries will have the greatest chance of success if one applies the expanded human rights concept.”83
Far from being purely strategic, the Scandinavian preference for a broad human rights conception was based on a sincere commitment to economic and social rights. At the General Assembly in September 1976, Knut Frydenlund argued, “Human rights also comprise satisfaction of the basic material needs of the ordinary person freedom from hunger and want.”84 The 1977 report by the nmfa noted that the protection of civil and political rights was intrinsically interlinked with the realization of economic and social rights.85 A report compiled by the dmfa the same month similarly employed a holistic definition of human rights that encompassed civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights such as the right to work, the right to education, social safety, and reasonable living standards.86 In a briefing to the Danish Parliament in November 1977, K.B. Andersen stressed how Denmark repeatedly expressed the view that progress on economic and social rights had to be achieved jointly with progress on civil and political rights.87 At the General Assembly in 1978, his successor Henning Christophersen argued, “The fact that economic, social, and cultural rights have been recognized on par with the traditional civil and political rights implies, in the view of my country, a human outlook that not only respects the right of the individual to assert himself; it also implies genuine obligations towards fellow men. Both categories of human rights need to be guaranteed as essential parts of an integral whole.”88 Christophersen was supplemented by his Swedish colleague Karin Söder who cautioned, “We must avoid creating a false conflict between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights on the other. The energies of the United Nations should be directed towards strengthening both simultaneously.”89 This commitment to a broad human rights conception underpinned Scandinavian support for both the nieo and basic needs.
Conclusion
During the 1970s, the Scandinavian countries actively sought to promote the realization of economic and social human rights in their UN diplomacy. This was made possible through their recent adoption of activist foreign policies with an emphasis on UN diplomacy, human rights, and Global South solidarity. This commitment to human rights and social justice was part of the construction of a wider humanitarian brand composed of domestic identity-building and international reputation-building. As such, the Scandinavian position mixed ideals and interests. Moreover, the Scandinavian countries were not always in sync with each other. Yet, unlike most other Western countries, the Scandinavians were generally supportive of the developing countries’ demands for a nieo and viewed its implementation as important for the realization of human rights. They also backed the basic needs strategy promoted by the World Bank and the United States. Whereas the respective proponents of the nieo and basic needs viewed these as competing agendas, the Scandinavian countries saw them as complementary strategies to combat economic inequality and promote economic and social rights. This position reflected a Scandinavian internationalism shaped by international solidarity and a broad conception of human rights that included economic, social, and cultural rights on an equal footing with civil and political rights. These rights were viewed as mutually interlinked and their realization was perceived as being dependent on lessening economic inequality among countries as well as within countries.
Söder, K. General Assembly, 32nd session, September 29, 1977, a/32/pv.13, 202.
Vik, H.H., et al. “Histories of Human Rights in the Nordic Countries.” Nordic Journal of Human Rights 36 (3) (2018), 189–201.
For attempts to rectify this imbalance, see Maul, D. Human Rights, Development and Decolonization: the International Labour Organization, 1940–70 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Burke, R. “Some Rights Are More Equal than Others: The Third World and the Transformation of Economic and Social Rights.” Humanity 3 (3) (2012), 427–48; Moyn, S. Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018); Jensen, S.L.B., and G.C. Walton. Social Rights and the Politics of Obligation in History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Mazurek, M., and P. Betts. “Preface: When Rights were Social.” Humanity 3 (3) (2012), 291–95.
See, for instance: Ingebritsen, C. “Norm Entrepreneurs: Scandinavia’s Role in World Politics.” Cooperation and Conflict 37 (1) (2002), 11–23; Jakobsen, P.V. “The Nordic Peacekeeping Model: Rise, Fall, Resurgence?” International Peacekeeping 13 (3) (2006), 381–96; Kuisma, M. “Social Democratic Internationalism and the Welfare State After the ‘Golden Age.’” Cooperation and Conflict 42 (1) (2007), 9–26. For human rights diplomacy, see O’Flaherty, M., et al. Human Rights Diplomacy: Contemporary Perspectives (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2011), 1–2.
Ferguson, N., et al., eds. The Shock of the Global: the 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).
Snyder, S.B. Human Rights Activism and the End of the Cold War: a Transnational History of the Helsinki Network (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Suri, J. “Detente and Human Rights: American and West European Perspectives on International Change.” Cold War History 8 (4) (2008), 527–45.
Burke, R. Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 92–111.
Dehm, J. “Highlighting Inequalities in the Histories of Human Rights: Contestations over Justice, Needs and Rights in the 1970s.” Leiden Journal of International Law 31 (4) (2018), 874.
Borstelmann, T. The 1970s: a New Global History from Civil Rights to Economic Inequality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 4.
Ibid., 152.
Burke, R. “Competing for the Last Utopia?: The nieo, Human Rights, and the World Conference for the International Women’s Year, Mexico City, June 1975.” Humanity 6 (1) (2015), 47.
Keck, M.E., and K. Sikkink. Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998); Kaldor, M. “The Idea of Global Civil Society.” International Affairs 79 (3) (2003), 586.
Gilman, N. “The New International Economic Order: A Reintroduction.” Humanity 6 (1) (2015), 1–2.
Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, unga Res. 3201 (S-vi), UN Doc. a/res/s-6/3201 (May 1, 1974). Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, unga Res. 3202 (S-vi), UN Doc. a/res/s-6/3203 (May 1, 1974). Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, unga Res. 3281(xxix), UN Doc. a/res/29/3281 (December 12, 1974).
Dehm, J. “Highlighting Inequalities.” 881–86.
Weiss, T.G., T. Carayannis, and L. Emmerij, eds. UN Voices: the Struggle for Development and Social Justice (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 239–45.
Dehm, J. “Highlighting Inequalities,” 877–78.
Sharma, P.A. “Between North and South: The World Bank and the New International Economic Order.” Humanity 6 (1) (2015), 190.
Moyn, S. Not Enough, 119–45.
Bjereld, U., A.W. Johansson, and K. Molin. Sveriges säkerhet och världens fred: svensk utrikespolitik under kalla kriget (2008), 224–75.
Villaume, P. Allieret med forbehold: Danmark, nato og den kolde krig (København: Eirene, 1995); Tamnes, R. Oljealder (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1997).
Jakobsen, P.V., and K. Kjærsgaard. “Den danske fn-aktivismes storhed og fald 1945–2016.” Politica 49 (4) (2017), 381–84.
Götz, N. “Prestige and Lack of Alternative: Denmark and the United Nations in the Making.” Scandinavian Journal of History 29 (2) (2004), 73–96; Engh, S. “The Conscience of the World?: Swedish and Norwegian Provision of Development Aid.” Itinerario 33 (2) (2009), 68.
Bjereld, U., A.W. Johansson, and K. Molin. Sveriges säkerhet, 255. The Nordic countries also coordinated through the Nordic Council and from 1971 the Nordic Council of Ministers.
Jakobsen, V.P. “The United Nations and the Nordic Four: Cautious Skeptics, Committed Believers, Cost-Benefit Calculators.” In The Routledge Handbook of Scandinavian Politics, eds. P. Nedergaard and A. Wivel (London: Routledge, 2018), 281–93.
Eckel, J. The Ambivalence of Good: Human Rights in International Politics since the 1940s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 190–242; Neier, A. The International Human Rights Movement: a History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 138–59.
Jensen, S.L.B. “Evolving Internationalism: Denmark and Human Rights Politics, 1948–1968.” Nordic Journal of Human Rights 36 (3) (2018), 252–70.
Makko, A. “Sweden, Europe, and the Cold War. A Reappraisal.” Journal of Cold War Studies 14 (2) (2012), 68–97; Makko, A. Ambassadors of Realpolitik: Sweden, the csce and the Cold War (New York: Berghahn, 2017); Villaume, P. “Anticipating European Detente: Denmark, nato and the Struggle for an All-European Security Conference in the ‘Long 1970s.’” In The “Long 1970s”: Human Rights, East-West Détente and Transnational Relations, eds. P. Villaume, R. Mariager, and H. Porsdam (London: Routledge, 2016), 125–44; Tamnes, R. Oljealder, 370–71.
Rosas, A. “Nordic Human Rights Policies.” Current Research on Peace and Violence 9 (4) (1986), 167–82.
Huldt, B. Sweden, the United Nations and Decolonization (Stockholm: Esselte Studium, 1974), 167–71; Pharo, H.Ø. “Norge og den tredje verden.” In Vekst og Velstand, eds. T. Bergh and H.Ø. Pharo (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1989), 287–313.
Gleijeses, P. “Review Article: Scandinavia and the Liberation of Southern Africa.” International History Review 27 (2) (2005), 324–31; Ekengren, A., and N. Götz. “The One Percent Country: Sweden’s Internalisation of the Aid Norm.” In Saints and Sinners, eds. T.B. Olesen, H.Ø. Pharo, and K. Paaskesen (Oslo: Akademika Pub, 2013), 34.
Olesen, T.B. “Prioritering, profilering og politisk orientering: Engagement og aktivisme i dansk udviklingsog bistandspolitik 1962–2015.” Politik 18 (2015), 27; Engh, S. “The Conscience,” 72.
Puyvallée, A.B., and K. Bjørkdahl, eds. Do-Gooders and the End of Aid (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 3–4.
Nissen, A. “A Historical View on the Nordic ‘Peace Brand’ Norway and Sweden: Partners and Competitors in Peace.” In Do-Gooders and the End of Aid, eds. A.B. Puyvallée and K. Bjørkdahl, 81.
Dolman, A.J. “The Like-Minded Countries and the New International Order: Past, Present and Future Prospects.” Cooperation and Conflict 14 (2) (1979), 57–85; Hveem, H. “Scandinavia, the Like-Minded Countries, and the nieo.” In Western Europe and the New International Economic Order, eds. E. Laszlo and J. Kurtzman (New York: Pergamon Press, 1980), 45–92.
Marklund, C. “Double Loyalties? Small-State Solidarity and the Debates on New International Economic Order in Sweden During the Long 1970s.” Scandinavian Journal of History 45 (3) (2020), 384–406; Olesen, T.B. “Between Words and Deeds. Denmark and the nieo Agenda, 1974–1982.” In The Aid Rush, eds. H.Ø. Pharo and M.P. Fraser (Oslo, 2008), 145–83; Huldt, B. “The Nordic Countries and the New International Economic Order: Consensus and Disagreement within the Nordic Group.” Cooperation and Conflict 14 (2/3) (1979), 149–57; Stokke, O. Norge og den tredje verden: Program, oppfølging og perspektiver for en ny økonomisk verdensordning (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1979).
nmfa. Report to the Storting, no. 94 (1974–75), April 25, 1975. Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs Andersson, S. General Assembly, 30th session, September 23, 1975, a/pv.2358, 124. Archives of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Copenhagen (henceforth admfa), 104, A1 1, box 3, Ulrichsen, W., internal dmfa speech, August 25, 1976.
Hveem, H. “Scandinavia,” 50; Olesen, T.B. “Prioritering, profilering,” 29; Olesen, T.B. “Between Words and Deeds,” 148–57.
General Assembly, Verbatim record of plenary meeting 2315, December 12, 1974, UN Doc. a/pv.2315. The nieo Declaration and Programme were adopted without a vote.
Archives of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo (henceforth anmfa), 37.11/1, 11, Telegram, noreg to NORDELEGUN, December 5, 1974. anmfa, 37.11/1, 11, Memo, Ulnes, D.M., nmfa, November 29, 1974.
anmfa, 37.11/1, 11, Norway, Vote Explanation, December 6, 1974.
admfa, 119 D 1 A, box 2, Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Newsletter, December 9, 1974. admfa, 119 D 1 B, box 1, Krogh, T. “Guldberg: Regeringen er ikke gået af – derfor bestemmer jeg.” Minavisen, December 11, 1974. Request for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, “What information can the Minister of Foreign Affairs give about the foreign policy situation?” F3, March 18, 1975.
General Assembly, 30th Session, 2439th Plenary Meeting, December 12, 1975, UN Doc. a/pv.2439, 1307.
Hveem, H. “Scandinavia,” 49. Votes on concrete nieo proposals: Sweden: For 10, Abstain 6, Against 1; Norway: For 8, Abstain 7, Against 2; Denmark: For 2, Abstain 10, Against 5.
Hveem, H. “Scandinavia,” 50–51; Bjereld, U., A.W. Johannesen, and K. Molin, Sveriges säkerhet, 242; Olesen, T.B. Between Words and Deeds, 172–75.
Proclamation of Tehran, Final Act of the International Conference on Human Rights, Tehran, April 22 to May 13, 1968, UN Doc. a/conf.32/41 (1986).
Archives of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Stockholm (henceforth asmfa), hp 48Y, box 540, f48, Memo, Linder, S.G., October 25, 1972. “Mänskliga rättigheter: Sovjet imponerar Sverige långt fram.” Dagens Nyheter, October 22, 1972, 40.
asmfa, hp 48Y, box 540, f48, Letter, Love Kellberg to Kaj Sundberg, October 27, 1972.
Ganji, M. The Widening Gap: A Study of the Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (e/cn.4/1108/Add.5: UN Commission on Human Rights 1973); Ganji, M. The Widening Gap: A Study of the Realization of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UN Doc. e/cn.4/1131: UN Commission on Human Rights 1974).
Dehm, J. “Highlighting Inequalities.” 882–83.
anmfa, 26.8/9, 4, Letter, Norwegian UN-Delegation to nmfa, July 13, 1973.
admfa, 119, D 2 A, box 2, Summary of joint Nordic meeting, Copenhagen, August 30–31, 1973.
Commission on Human Rights, Report on the 30th Session (February 4–March 8, 1974), UN Doc. e/cn.4/1154.
Commission on Human Rights, Report on the 31st Session (February 3–March 7, 1975), UN Doc. e/cn.4/1179.
Commission on Human Rights, Report on the 32nd Session (February 2–March 5, 1976), UN Doc. e/cn.4/1213.
Commission on Human Rights, Report on the 33rd Session (February 7–March 11, 1977), UN Doc. e/cn.4/1257.
ecosoc decision 229 (lxii) of May 13, 1977.
Burke, R. “Competing for the Last Utopia?: The nieo, Human Rights, and the World Conference for the International Women’s Year, Mexico City, June 1975.” Humanity 6 (1) (2015), 57. Alternative Approaches and Ways and Means Within the United Nations System for Improving the Effective Enjoyment of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, unga Res. 32/130, UN Doc. a/res/32/130 (December 16, 1977).
Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Söder, K., General Assembly, 31st session, October 13, 1976, a/31/pv.29, 551. nmfa, Report to the Storting, no. 93 (1976–77), April 22, 1977. Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Anderson, K.B. General Assembly, 32nd session, September 27, 1977, a/32/pv.9, 122.
admfa, 119, D 2a, box 3, Communiqué from the meeting of Nordic ministers of foreign affairs, Helsinki, March 20–21, 1975.
Palme, O. General Assembly, 30th session, November 11, 1975, a/pv.2401, 811. For Palme and the nieo, see also Marklund, C. “Double Loyalties.”
anmfa, 26.5/121, 3 Norwegian UN-delegation report 1975. anmfa, 26.5/122, 3 Stortingsmelding nr. 52 Norges deltagelse i ecosoc 58 og 59.
Andersen, K.B. General Assembly, 31st session, September 28, 1976, a/31/pv.8, 104.
General Assembly, 32nd Session, 105th Plenary Meeting, December 16, 1977, 1720–21.
Frydenlund, K. General Assembly, 31st session, September 27, 1976, a/31/pv.6, 50.
Andersen, K.B. General Assembly, 32nd session, September 27, 1977, a/32/pv.9, 122.
nmfa, Report to the Storting, no. 93 (1976–77), April 22, 1977, 14.
anmfa, 26.5/121, 2, Telegram, nmfa to Norwegian UN-delegation: statement at ecosoc 58th session, April 22, 1975, UN Doc. e/sr.1943.
anmfa, 26.5/122, 2, Press briefing, Norwegian UN-delegation on ecosoc 59th session, July 8, 1975.
Frydenlund, K. General Assembly, 31st session, September 27, 1976, a/31/pv.6, 50. See also Norwegian Prime Minister Nordli, O., General Assembly, 31st session, October 21, 1976, a/31/pv.39, 687.
Singh, A. “The ‘Basic Needs’ Approach to Development vs the New International Economic Order.” World Development 7 (6) (1979), 586–87; Galtung, J. “The New International Economic Order and the Basic Needs Approach.” Alternatives 4 (4) (1979), 461–70.
The United States’ approach to the nieo evolved from hostility to limited accommodation under the Ford administration. See Sargent, D. A Superpower Transformed: the Remaking of American Foreign Relations in the 1970s (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). The Carter administration sought to replace nieo demands with a focus on basic needs. See Franczak, M. “Losing the Battle, Winning the War: Neoconservatives versus the New International Economic Order, 1974–82.” Diplomatic History 43 (5) (2019), 867–89; Franczak, M. “Human Rights and Basic Needs: Jimmy Carter’s North-South Dialogue, 1977–81.” Cold War History 18 (4) (2018), 447–64.
admfa, 104, A 1 5, box 8, Report, August 17, 1977.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Andersen, K.B. General Assembly, 32nd session, September 27, 1977, a/32/pv.9, 123.
Riksdagen, Regeringens proposition 1977/78: 135: om riktlinjer för internationellt utvecklingssamarbete, 73.
Ibid.
Schaffer, J.K. “Democracy Promotion in Swedish Development Aid.” In Do-Gooders and the End of Aid, eds. A.B. Puyvallée and K. Bjørkdahl, 153.
Burke, R. “Some Rights,” 427–48; Andersen, K.B., General Assembly, 32nd session, September 27, 1977, a/32/pv.9, 122.
asmfa, hp 48Y, box 543, f58, Letter, Dahlén, O. to Rydbeck, O., March 7, 1974.
nmfa, Report to the Storting, no. 93 (1976–77), April 22, 1977, 14.
Frydenlund, K. General Assembly, 31st session, September 27, 1976, a/31/pv.6, 50.
nmfa, Report to the Storting, no. 93 (1976–77), April 22, 1977, 15.
admfa, 104, A 1 8b, Report by the dmfa, April 18, 1977.
Folketingstidende, R2 Redegørelse af Udenrigsministeren om den udenrigspolitiske situation, November 18, 1977, 2221–22.
Christophersen, H. General Assembly, 33rd session, September 26, 1978, a/33/pv.9, 120.
Söder, K. General Assembly, 33rd session, September 26, 1978, a/33/pv.9, 129.
