Deploying the Engagement Policy: The Significance of Legal Dualism in Norway's Support for Human Rights Treaties from the late 1970s

Abstract

Leadership in human rights was added to the ‘engagement policy’ in Norway’s foreign policy from the late 1970s, and the country emerged as a supporter of initiatives to draft new human rights treaties. This paper compares Norwegian participation in the drafting of three key human rights treaties in the 1980s in order to examine the significance of its dualist legal system in contributions to these efforts. Based on parliamentary negotiations, archival materials of the ministries involved, and private papers, the article argues that Norway’s dualist legal system, as practised at the time, enabled the government to ratify human rights treaties quickly and also informed the state’s disposition towards different human rights projects long before any ratification took place. In other words, it facilitated impulses to pursue ideologically and politically desirable projects under the rubric of international legal norms.