
Johanna Ohlsson
Head of Department of Human Rights and Democracy, PhD, Senior Lecturer
E-Mail johanna.ohlsson@ehs.se
Johanna Ohlsson, PhD in Ethics (2019) is serving as a Senior Lecturer and Head of Department at the Department of Human Rights and Democracy at University College Stockholm (UCS), and a Researcher at Uppsala University (UU). Her research is currently centring on three projects 1) the role of human rights in democratisation processes in authoritarian states, 2) justice theory and its applicability to sustainable development in the Arctic, and 3) the right to reasoned decisions in Swedish public administration. Her research interests more broadly concern human rights, justice, sustainability, justification theory, peacebuilding ethics, and the role of human rights in public administration and student organisations.
2020-2022, she did a postdoc within the EU-funded project JUSTNORTH: Toward Just, Ethical and Sustainable Arctic Economies, Environments and Societies, primarily doing research on social and global justice. Prior to that (2019-2020) she directed the governmental program on human rights education in the Swedish public sector at Uppsala University. She holds a PhD (2019) in Ethics from the Faculty of Theology, in collaboration with the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES) at Uppsala University. In addition, she holds a MA degree in Human Rights (2012) and a BA degree in Peace and Conflict studies (2009). In her PhD project, Dr Ohlsson explored questions of how and under which circumstances external states are justifying their engagements in peacebuilding activities in other states. Her thesis addresses and explores justification theory and is related to critical research on norms related to liberal peacebuilding and the responsibility to protect. The empirical focus of her dissertation is on the BRICS countries and the dissertation offer analyses of the foreign policy of Russia and South Africa.
Prior to her PhD studies, she worked as a research assistant at the Labour Resource and Research Institute (LaRRI) in Windhoek, Namibia, and prior to that, as a research assistant on various projects (the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), amongst others) at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, at Uppsala University.
Johanna Ohlsson has been teaching at BA, MA and postgraduate levels, both at UCS, Uppsala University, and at the Karolinska Institute. She has been teaching and directing several courses at the multidisciplinary BA and MA programs in Human Rights and Democracy at UCS as well as the MA program in Human Rights at UU. She also has experience teaching the postgraduate course Introduction to Research, the MA program Religion in Peace and Conflict, and the Network of Humanitarian Action (NOHA) MA program and Euroculture MA program, both Erasmus+ programs, all at the Faculty of Theology, UU. Dr Ohlsson is also supervising degree projects, and happy to supervise PhD students.
Dr Ohlsson is serving as quaestor on the current praesidium (2022-2014) for Societas Ethica, the European research association for scholars in philosophical, theological and applied ethics.
Books
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2018. On the Ethics of External States in Peacebuilding: A Critical Study of Justification. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.
Edited Books
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Wood-Donnelly, Corine, Ohlsson, Johanna, 2023. Arctic Justice: Environment, Society and Governance. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, Przybylinski, Stephen, 2023. Theorising Justice: A Primer for Social Scientists. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, Bremdal, Patrik, 2020. Mänskliga rättigheter i teori och praktik: Från idé till förvaltning. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB.
Articles
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Ohlsson, Johanna, Romare, Johanna, et al., 2021. Beslutsmotivering som rättfärdigande. In: Förvaltningsrättslig Tidskrift 5. S. 889-910.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2019. On the Ethical, Moral and Pragmatic Justification of Political Decisions. In: Ethical Thought 19. 2. S. 87-97.
Book Chapters
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2024. A three-step approach for assessing issues of justice/injustice. STN Seminar Series - Just Energy & Just Transition, 31 October 2024 in Rovaniemi/Online, Finland.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2024. A Typology of Justifications for Political Decisions. HRJust Symposium 9 of August 2024, Stockholm, Sweden.
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2024. Ethics in Arctic Justice, Law, and Governance. In: The 17th EISA Pan-European Conference on International Relations (PEC): SEARCHING FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: SPACES, STYLES, STRUGGLES. Lille
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2024. Exiled Belarusian Youth and Student Organizations’ Perceptions of Human Rights. Uppsala Forum and ENLIGHT initiation workshop Exploring Belarus: Approaches and the Complexity of Postsocialist Layers,9-10 October 2024, Uppsala, Sweden.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2024. Higher Education and Democratisation in Authoritarian States. Eastern Partnership and Youth Rights, Vilnius, Litauen, 4 oktober 2024.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, Lindh, Sara, 2024. Indigenous Land Dispossession in the Green Transition: Comparative Perspectives from Sweden and Finland. Legal Struggles on Indigenous LandRights in Sápmi - International Workshop, Gothenburg, Sweden, 12–13 June 2024.
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2024. Indigenous Land Dispossession in the Green Transition: Comparative Perspectives from Sweden and Finland. In: The 17th EISA Pan-European Conference on International Relations (PEC): SEARCHING FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: SPACES, STYLES, STRUGGLES. Lille
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2024. Indigenous Land Dispossession in the"Green" Transition: Perspectives from Forest Sámi Communities in Sweden. In: Conference of the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI) 2024: Human Rights in a Polarized World – Realizing Human Rights in the Green and Just Transition.
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2024. Is there a human right to reasons for administrative decisions?. In: Book of Abstracts: Human Rights - Critical Perspectives.
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2024. Mapping legal and non-legal clinic courses in Human Rights Higher Education programs in Sweden. In: IAHRE Conference 19 April 2024, UCL London Paper Abstracts.
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2024. Unpacking the Commodification of Indigenous Rights by Exploring Conditions for Political, Legal, and Moral Agency. In: Book of Abstracts: Human Rights - Critical Perspectives.
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2023. Applying a Transnational Theory of Justice to the Arctic. In: Corine Wood-Donnelly & Johanna Ohlsson (eds.), Arctic Justice: Environment, Society and Governance. Bristol: Bristol University Press. S. 8-20.
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2023. Conclusion. In: Johanna Ohlsson & Stephen Przybylinski (eds.), Theorising Justice: A Primer for Social Scientists. Bristol: Bristol University Press. S. 257-286.
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2023. Indigenous Approaches to Justice. In: Johanna Ohlsson & Stephen Przybylinski (eds.), Theorising Justice: A Primer for Social Scientists. Bristol: Bristol University Press. S. 107-123.
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2023. Intergenerational Justice. In: Johanna Ohlsson & Stephen Przybylinski (eds.), Theorising Justice: A Primer for Social Scientists. Bristol: Bristol University Press. S. 223-239.
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2023. Introduction. In: Johanna Ohlsson & Stephen Przybylinski (eds.), Theorising Justice: A Primer for Social Scientists. Bristol: Bristol University Press. S. 1-14.
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2023. Radical Justice: Anarchism, Utopian Socialism, Marxism and Critical Theory. In: Johanna Ohlsson & Stephen Przybylinski (eds.), Theorising Justice: A Primer for Social Scientists. Bristol: Bristol University Press. S. 75-90.
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2023. Radical Justice Through Injustice: Postcolonial Approaches. In: Johanna Ohlsson & Stephen Przybylinski (eds.), Theorising Justice: A Primer for Social Scientists. Bristol: Bristol University Press. S. 91-106.
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2023. The conditions for reconciliation: forms, timing and normative potential. In: Book of Abstracts: ETHICS OF RECONCILIATION – EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVES: Societas Ethica’s 59th Annual Conference 2023 Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). S. 51-52.
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2020. Agenda 2030 och mänskliga rättigheter - en ohelig allians?. In: Patrik Bremdal & Johanna Ohlsson (eds.), Mänskliga rättigheter i teori och praktik: Från idé till förvaltning. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB. S. 97-120.
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2020. Avslutning: Att gå från idé till förvaltning. In: Patrik Bremdal & Johanna Ohlsson (eds.), Mänskliga rättigheter i teori och praktik: Från idé till förvaltning. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB. S. 267-271.
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2020. Mänskliga rättigheter i teori, tillämpning och praktik. In: Patrik Bremdal & Johanna Ohlsson (eds.), Mänskliga rättigheter i teori och praktik: Från idé till förvaltning. Lund: Studentlitteratur AB. S. 15-21.
Conference Contributions
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Ohlsson, Johanna, Navumau, Vasil, et al., 2024. Exile and Engagement: Exploring the Effects of Repressions on Belarusian Academic Migration and Democratic Discourse. Academic migration within the EU – opportunities and constraints, Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden 11-13 December 2024.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, Lindh, Sara, 2024. Justice, resilience, and Indigenous land dispossession in the “green” transition: Perspectives from forest Sámi communities in Sweden. Nordic Research Network for Sámi and Indigenous Peoples' Law (NORSIL), Luleå, Sweden, 4-5 November 2024.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2024. Theories of Justice. REBOUND (Reconceptualizing Boundaries Together Towards Resilient and Just Arctic Future(s)) Inaguration Conference, 14-15 March in Rovaniemi, Finland.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2016. International Proxy Agency: Framework for Ethical Analysis of Peacebuilding Processes. International Studies Association 57th Annual Convention, Atlanta, 16-19 March 2016.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2015. International Proxy Agency: Framework for Ethical Analysis of Peacebuilding Processes. Fourth Annual Conference of the International Association for Peace and Conflict Studies and the ECPR Standing Group on Critical Peace and Conflict Studies 'Inequality, peace and conflict' Manchester, UK, 10-11 September, 2015.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2015. International Proxy Agency: New Framework for Ethical Analysis of Peacebuilding Processes. Annual conference of Societas Ethica, Globalisation and Global Justice, Linköping, Sweden, 20-23 August, 2015.
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Ohlsson, Johanna, 2014. External actors as peacemakers?: Agency and legitimisation strategies from ethical perspectives. 'The Ethics of War and Peace’ Societas Ethica Annual conference Maribor, Slovenia 21st-24th August, 2014.
Other
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Ohlsson, Johanna, Söderberg Kovacs, Mimmi, et al., 2013. From Civil War to Strong Peace in Africa: the Thomas Ohlson Memorial Conference: Summary Report from the Opening Session of the Thomas Ohlson Memorial Conference 2013.
Researching Human Rights and Democracy, 15 credits
Human Rights and Philosophy, 7.5 credits
Researching Human Rights and Democracy, 15 credits
Human Rights and Philosophy, 7.5 credits
Human Rights and Philosophy, 7.5 credits
Human Rights and Democracy Clinic, Part I, 7,5 credits
Climate Change and Human Rights, 7.5 credits
Human Rights and Philosophy, 7.5 credits
Researching Human Rights and Democracy, 15 credits
Climate Change and Human Rights, 7.5 credits
Human Rights and Democracy Clinic, Part I, 7,5 credits
Human Rights and Democracy Clinic, Part II, 15 credits
International Humanitarian Law, 7.5 credits
International Humanitarian Law, 7.5 credits