WELCOME REMARKS
PhD, Member of Parliament, Host of the Conference
Has been a member of seven successive Parliaments since 1992. Nutt is a member of the Constitutional Committee and European Union Affairs Committee. Mart Nutt is a 1985 graduate of the University of Tartu with a degree in history and ethnography and entered a graduate degree programme at the same institution in 1988. In 2011, Nutt defended his Ph.D. dissertation at Tallinn University of Technology on the topic “Development and application in foreign relations of the competence of Estonian Parliament”. He has been a member of the supervisory board of the Estonian Institute of Human Rights since 2011. Mart Nutt was a member of United Nations Human Rights Council’s Darfur mission in 2007-2008 and member of European Commission against Racism and Intolerance in 1998-2013.
Historian, philosopher and pedagogue, professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts
David Vseviov is a productive publicist and host of the author and presenter of the radio series Mystical Russia. He has published history books and numerous scientific articles and essays. Vseviov has worked at the Institute of History of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, where his researched the history of the socialist period. He has received many awards, including the European Parliament’s European Citizen’s Prize in 2016 and the Gold Microphone Award of the Association of Estonian Broadcasters. Vseviov has defended a PhD thesis in cultural history.
Head of the Office of the Secretary General at Amnesty International
David Griffiths shapes the agenda and interventions of the Secretary General on human rights issues across the world, acts as a media spokesperson, and facilitates long-term strategic thinking in the organisation. He previously led the South Asia regional team, managing the start of a transition from London into the region. Before joining Amnesty, he worked in research and advocacy to promote the rights of religious, ethnic and caste minorities in Asia. He has a strong interest in the intersection of nationalism with religious and cultural identities, and holds degrees from Oxford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
Chairman of the Board, Institute of Human Rights
An Estonian politician and geographer. Hansen graduated from the Department of Geography of the University of Tartu in 1985. From 1985-1990 he worked at the Institute of Applied Geography and from 1990-1992 at the Tallinn University of Technology. He was a member of parliament from 1995-2003. In 1994–1995 he was Minister of the Environment in Andres Tarand’s cabinet. Hansen is the member of the supervisory board of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Mission Centre and the chairman of the management board of the Estonian Institute of Human Rights.
Does Technology Pose a Danger to Human Rights?
Founder and council member of the e-Governance Academy
He has served as the director of the e-Governance Academy and been a member of the Estonian Parliament and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Tallo was a foreign policy adviser to President Lennart Meri and has lectured on public policy and public administration at the University of Tartu. He is the author of the public service code of ethics and participated in the drafting of the Basic Principles of Information Policy of Estonia. Tallo deals with the implementation of ICT solutions in Estonia and has advised public sector leaders in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, CIS, Arab countries and Africa. From 2007 to 2009 he was seconded by Estonian government to the UN Institute for Training and Research where managed the e-governance programme.
Professor of journalism at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York
Jeff Jarvis is the Director of the Tow-Knight Centre for Entrepreneurial Journalism. He deals with developing innovative solutions and business models for media enterprises. Jarvis is an initiator of the News Integrity Initiative, which has been supported, among others, by Facebook, Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund and Ford Foundation. Jarvis is an active blogger and has published several books.
Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana
Mojca Pajnik’s research focuses are political and communication theory, populism, migration, gender studies, and human rights. She has been an adviser, board member, expert and coordinator for many research projects and participated in policymaking. Pajnik is heading up a project called Gender Differentiation in Media Industry and is the partner for the Erasmus+ programme called MEET, Media Education for Equity and Tolerance.
Head of Security & Resilience Programme and Research Fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security
Ivo Juurvee has worked as the head of the Internal Security Institute of the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences and as an adviser to the National Security and Defence Coordination Unit of the Estonian Government Office. Ivo has also taught security related topics at the University of Tartu, the NATO School at Oberammergau and on the FRONTEX master’s programme on border management and worked as Honorary Research Fellow at University College London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Juurvee holds a PhD from the University of Tartu.
Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats
Matti Saarelainen also works as a project manager in the office of the Prime Minister of Finland and as a department head in the Finnish Security Police. He has worked in the security field in the office of the Prime Minister of Finland. Saarelainen holds a PhD in international relations from the University of Helsinki.
Associate Professor at Kozminski University
Paul Przemyslaw Polanski is a lawyer and associate professor of law, and he also works in the field of software engineering. He has published books and articles about international and European IT law. P. Polanski helped to translate the Moodle program into Polish. He is the founder and director of a research institute FREE that focuses on the intersection of law and ICT and he is the main architect of Legalis - commercial legal information system used by more than 20 000 lawyers in Poland. P. Polanski holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne.
Europe on the Brink of a Fundamental Rights Crisis. Are Human Rights in Freefall?
Lecturer at the University of Tartu
Katre Luhamaa is Lecturer in European Law and in International Law at the University of Tartu and acting head of the department. She also works as a legal expert at the Institute of Baltic Studies and as the contact person at the Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) of the Council of Europe. She is the Estonian legal expert at FRANET. She has also worked at the Supreme Court of Estonia and the Institute of Public Law at the University of Tartu. Luhamaa has a PhD in law from Tartu University.
France’s Ambassador to Denmark
François Zimeray has served as French Ambassador-at-large for Human Rights and participated in numerous missions around the world. He has been a member of the European Parliament and serviced as a mayor.
Professionally, Zimeray is a lawyer. Among other positions, he is a member of the International Criminal Bar of The Hague and calls himself a human rights activist. In 2015, he survived a terror shooting in Copenhagen while participating in a debate about the freedom of expression. He has also written a book about his experiences and conflicting feelings on the topic.
Lawyer and human rights expert
Jacob Mchangama is a Danish lawyer and legal adviser, as well as human rights expert. He founded Justitia, a think tank that deals with human rights and laws. Mchangama has also dealt with international human rights issues at the University of Copenhagen. His articles have been published in many recognized international publications. He received a cand.jur. degree from the University of Copenhagen.
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria
Daniel Mitov served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria from 2014 to 2017. He worked at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in the U.S. as the head of the political party development programme in Iraq and representative in Brussels. Mitov has been the NDI representative in Libya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Yemen, Tunisia and elsewhere. He has worked at the Political Academy for Central and Southeast Europe, participating as a member of the team from the Bulgarian School of Politics. Mitov has studied political science at Sofia University. He has participated in many international programmes, including the Marshall Memorial Fund, and at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Head of the Office of the Secretary General at Amnesty International
David Griffiths shapes the agenda and interventions of the Secretary General on human rights issues across the world, acts as a media spokesperson, and facilitates long-term strategic thinking in the organisation. He previously led the South Asia regional team, managing the start of a transition from London into the region. Before joining Amnesty, he worked in research and advocacy to promote the rights of religious, ethnic and caste minorities in Asia. He has a strong interest in the intersection of nationalism with religious and cultural identities, and holds degrees from Oxford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).
Justice of the Supreme Court of Estonia
Nele Parrest is a Justice of Administrative Law Chamber of the Supreme Court of Estonia and a lecturer of administrative law at the University of Tartu. She previously worked as a Deputy Chancellor of Justice and Departmental Head at the Office of the Chancellor of Justice. She has worked as an adviser to the Public Law Division of the Legislative Policy Department of the Estonian Ministry of Justice. Parrest has a master’s degree in law from the University of Tartu and is studying for her PhD.
Small States, Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights
Director of the Centre for Baltic Studies at the University of Tartu
Heiko Pääbo also works at the University of Tartu as a lecturer at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies. His research focus is the foreign policy of small countries (primarily the Baltic states) and collective memory conflicts, with the main focus on the areas of the former Russian empire. Pääbo has a PhD from the University of Tartu, and has furthered his studies at the St Petersburg State University, University of Potsdam and University of Delaware.
President of the Republic of Estonia
From 2004-2016 she was a Member of the European Court of Auditors. She has previously worked as the CFO and CEO of the Iru Power Plant of state-owned energy company Eesti Energia and as an Economic Advisor to Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar. She has graduated from the University of Tartu in the field of genetics and completed master’s studies in the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
Chief of the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Chandra Roy-Henriksen is a lawyer who has worked in law firms and at the United Nations. She is specialised in international law, human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples. Ms. Roy-Henriksen served in the International Labour Organization with focus on Convention No. 169 on indigenous and tribal peoples, and with the UN Development Programme. She received an LLM (Masters in Law) from The American University in Washington DC.
Visiting Professor at the University of Essex
Julian Burger is also a member of the faculty at the University of London and member of the human rights consortium. He has taught at several universities in Europe and North America and worked for more than 20 years at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, dealing primarily with issues related to the rights of indigenous people and minorities. Burger was one of the negotiators that drafted the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. He is actively involved in issues related to indigenous people and participates in missions to indigenous communities. His PhD thesis dealt with the poverty cycle in Northeast Brazil.
A fellow at the World Policy Institute (WPI)
Jonathan Cristol is a foreign policy expert. He consults on issues pertaining to U.S. foreign policy and to international security at the UN. As a defense contractor he provides instruction on the domestic and foreign policies of the Middle East. Cristol has served as an academic leader for a U.S. foreign policy programme and the director of the globalisation and international relations programme at Bard College in the U.S. He holds a PhD in international relations from the University of Bristol.
Danish Ambassador to Estonia
H.E. Kristina Miskowiak Beckvard has worked in several positions at the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has been Head of the Department for Public and Administrative Law, Head of the Department for Northern Europe, Minister Plenipotentiary at the Embassy of Denmark in Paris and First Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of Denmark at the OSCE and IAEA in Vienna. She has the Diploma in International Law from the University of Cambridge and Master of Laws degrees from Copenhagen and King’s College London and has authored legal books, including "Freedom of Speech and Responsibility”.
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2019Parallel World Values and InterestsA clean environment and future of the globe, the possibility to preserve your privacy and option to disengage, which is necessary for the human psyche, are practical topics that apply to everyone. -
2018Conflicts of ValuesIn 2018, the panels discussed the topic of small countries as equal partners, whether human rights have a future, how much algorithms affect human rights and whether Russia has a future. -
2017Are Human Rights in Freefall?The conference will address a number of today’s most important topics – terrorism, technological development, security, small states in a globalising world, culture and international cooperation – through a human rights perspective. -
2016Black and White Values in a Polarizing WorldThe topics under discussion this year include a survey of public opinion on human rights among the Estonian citizens and foreigners living in Estonia, questions related to collective human rights and propaganda that have changed people’s understanding of basic rights. -
2015Human Rights in Changing TimesThe topics under discussion this year include case studies from the European Court of Human Rights, linguistic human rights, as well as the views of various generations of Russians today regarding their society. -
2014Dignity in the context of human rightsThis year the conference agenda included three keynotes and a panel discussion following each one: 1) guarantees under international law; 2) rights of native peoples; guarantees under international law; 3) the situation and future in Russia and Ukraine and human rights. -
2013Human Rights and the Freedom to AssociationThis year’s annual conference, titled “Human Rights and the Freedom of Association” will analyse the global developments in human rights that have taken place in 2013. -
2012New Challenges of Human RightsOur conference examined human rights where the internet and the concept of security have altered dramatically our 20th century understanding of the core issues of human rights. -
2011Dedicated to the 20th anniversary of restoration of independence of Estonia