It’s Friday morning and I had packed my bag and dressed myself for the lectures. On my way to the HIA office I was thinking about this whole week. It was a really busy week, but we have met so many interesting people who gave us inspiring lectures.
Today’s topic is Perspective on Human Rights. Our first speaker is Astrid Kjeldgaard Petersen, young lady, who is doing her PhD at the University of Aarhus and she is also HIA Senior Fellow. Firstly, she gave us a short introduction to history and development of International Human Rights Low. After that we did workshop, case study, where we put ourselves in position of Court and had to decide the Al-Jedda case. On this case we have found out more about law connections between Charter of United Nations, European Convention on Human Rights and Security Council Resolutions. At the same time, Judith Goldstein, HIA founder from the US arrived to the Danish program, as a part of her visiting tour to all the European programs. It was interesting to hear about the other programs - and to show that the Danish program definitely beats them all!
For the first time in our life as HIA fellows, we had all done readings for today. These consisted of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which, together with Astrid's thorough both historical and contemporary analytical lecture, gave us a well-informed outset in order to study the group-specific cases that we were given as well. After a Danish lunch with traditional ryebread, mackerel in tomato and potato salad, we split into groups, where we discussed the different topics in the given papers. It was very interesting and educational for all fellows to experience how differently one can approach the same topic, and how our diverse backgrounds is a challenge in way of structuring a group presentation, as well as an incredible enrichment in throwing light on a topic from several perspectives. Hence, the exercise brought us even closer together and gave rise to reflections as well as debates about the first week of occupying ourselves solely with human rights and the question of how a democracy threats its own minorities. There is no doubt that all of us - whether a Dane, American or Bosnian - are recognizing the huge challenges of multiculturalism, integration and economic inequality facing Denmark, and how ambiguous the picture of a well-developed democracy is. This is why our attendance in HIA's educational program becomes so crucial: It opens our eyes and forces us to go around a modern democracy in order to take all of its 360 degrees into perspective. This nuanced presentation of a topic was also clear in the groups' presentation, where the subject was the rights based approach to development planning, with outset in children's rights. One group told about the development from needs to rights, emphasising that an outset in the human rights mean that each human being in the world, regardless of age, gender, religion, colour or economic situation is recognized as an equal individual with the capacity to make a change. The individual thereby becomes an active agent of change, it regards to own life as well as the society. This reminded us all of the overall purpose of engaging ourselves in HIA: We can make a change by empowering ourselves in order to empower others. To know all human beings' rights is the key to demand and realize a worthy human life in dignity!
The educational program of the program's 5th day was ended by the enthusiastic speaker, Jakob Mchamgama, who is the Head of Legal Affairs in the conservative/libertarian think tank CEPOS. He carries a law degree from the University of Copenhagen, and is occupied with international human rights law. Unlike many of our speakers in the first week of the program, Jakob undertook a critical perception of not only the international human rights institution, but also about the attempt to intertwine the civil and political rights and then the social, cultural and economic rights. Jakob thinks that development planning to a much greater extend should confront the issue of private property rights, as a way of extending especially poor people's capacity, instead of focusing so much on the softer dimensions. With his innovative and critical approach, Jakob gave us all a lot to reflect upon and debate, in our further occupation with human rights issues.
In the evening we took a bus 66 towards Operaen and we got off at Gallionsvej station. Curiously, we were looking for Philip de Langes Alle 9 street, where our Welcome dinner should take place. After little random walk we saw Ulla standing in front of building and calling us to come. Inside in the kitchen Senior Fellows were preparing dinner for us (Fellows) and our host families. Around 20:00h dinner was served and almost all families were there. It was really nice to meet other families and talk with them. Danish meals and wine goes perfectly together. After a pleasant and interesting dinner Fellows lead by Danish Fellows had a chance to taste of Copenhagen’s nightlife. It was an enjoyable night and it will stay in our memory for a long time
-Igor and Maja
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