We are pleased to share the successful launch of the Taiwan-based WP4 (COVID-19) team within the HRJust project. The event series, held in Taipei, brought together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and civil society actors from across Europe and Asia, marking an important step in strengthening both academic collaboration and civil society engagement.
This gathering builds on the longstanding development of relationships between Swedish and Taiwanese actors across academia and civil society. It reflects HRJust’s broader commitment to fostering cross-sector and transnational dialogue on the role of human rights in state practice.
The central event, titled “States’ Practice of Human Rights Justification: COVID-19 & Migration — Project Highlights and Roundtable,” presented preliminary findings from two core work packages: WP4 (COVID-19) and WP5 (Migration).
Across workshops, panels, and roundtable discussions, participants explored how states invoke human rights to justify policy decisions and governance strategies. The discussions highlighted how such justifications operate in different contexts, particularly during crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and in the field of migration governance.
The event opened with a project introduction by Maria Grahn-Farley, outlining the theoretical framework and objectives of HRJust.
Presentations from the WP4 team included contributions by Shun-Ling Chen, Yu-Ling Huang, and Hui-Chieh Su, who shared early findings on the use of human rights justifications during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their presentations were followed by insightful commentary from Kuan-Ju Chou (Taiwan Association for Human Rights) and Po-Han Lee (College of Public Health, National Taiwan University).
The WP5 (Migration) segment featured presentations by Ya-Wen Yang, Elica Ghavidel Olofsson, and Paul Lappalainen, with discussants John Stauffer (Civil Rights Defenders) and Lennon Ying-Da Wang (Serve the People Association), who brought critical perspectives from both advocacy and policy-oriented work.
The event concluded with a roundtable led by Song Lih Huang (Institute of Public Health, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University), bringing together all presenters and discussants for a broader exchange on the implications of the findings.
Beyond the formal programme, the event marked the establishment of new networks connecting researchers and civil society organisations across national and disciplinary boundaries. These collaborations are central to the HRJust project’s aim of understanding how human rights are mobilised in practice—and what this means for their role in governance.
We extend our sincere thanks to the Taiwan team for their dedicated efforts in organising this event, and to all participants for contributing to a rich and engaging discussion. The exchange of perspectives across contexts is essential to deepening our understanding of how human rights language is used, interpreted, and contested in state policy today.