Holding Governments to Account?
Abstract:
As a senior human rights advocate—both at the United Nations and the Council of Europe, as well as my homeland of Sweden—it is perhaps notable that I root much of my work in my experiences in Northern Ireland more than fifty years ago. I was then a relatively young journalist working for a major Swedish newspaper, and I had already been to Greece (then under the colonels’ dictatorship), Israel (to cover the 1967 war), and other hot spots around the world. So when I was asked by Amnesty International to go on a mission to Northern Ireland to look at internment, I did not expect to be shocked. And yet, I was. And that experience has stayed with me ever since. I have become more and more convinced over the years that my experience in Northern Ireland was symptomatic of a broader problem which is of immediate relevance to the United Kingdom, but also globally.
Recommended Citation: Thomas Hammarberg, Holding Governments to Account?, 48 Fordham Int'l L.J. 883 (2025).