Swedish Human Rights Commitments in OSCE perspective: Civil society assessment during the Swedish Chairpersonship in OSCE in 2021

The Swedish OSCE network has published a civil society assessment of human rights commitments of Sweden in OSCE perspective during the Swedish Chairpersonship in OSCE in 2021. This tradition was started by the Swiss chairpersonship in 2014. It carried out an evaluation of how the OSCE commitments in the area of the human are being implemented in the chair state. A response to the report should be formulated by the Chairpersonship including specific pledges for the implementation of recommendations brought up in the report. Furthermore, the state needs to include a presentation and discussion of the self-assessment not only on national level but also at the OSCE level.
 

"The point of self-assessment is to look where it hurts. Especially for outsiders, the contributions on the discrimination of the minority of indigenous Sami people in Sweden are very revealing.”

Matthias Hui, humanrights.ch

The Civic Solidarity Platform continues to demand ODIHR's role in monitoring and promoting the self-assessments by providing clear guidelines and trainings for self-evaluation chairpersonship state. 

The Swedish report is divided into five thematic chapters that deal with the problem areas of particular interest; aspects of the rule of law and the electoral system, the status of national minorities, particularly the Sami people, corruption primarily corporate corruption abroad involving Swedish actors, infringements on political rights from the “big tech” and the impact of the COVID-19. Furthermore, the report additionally includes outlooks on the migration and fight against organized crime, the two heated topics in Sweden.

The report was based to a great extent on the input from the Swedish civil society. 

Although by international standards, the Swedish performance on human rights compliance is very good, there are areas that require improvement and further attention, such as violence against women, human rights responsibilities abroad, and racial profiling. 

The full report can be read here.