United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk to visit Finland

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk will visit Finland from 18 to 19 December. He will meet Minister for Foreign Affairs Pekka Haavisto, who will be hosting the visit, and Prime Minister Sanna Marin.

Türk will exchange views with Members of Parliament, the Human Rights Centre and representatives of civil society organisations. In addition, he will attend an event on the global realisation of human rights, which is organised by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Advisory Board for International Human Rights. There he will have an opportunity to exchange views with a broad spectrum of civil society representatives.

The agenda of Türk’s visit to Finland focuses on international questions, opportunities to promote human rights, and global challenges in protecting and promoting human rights.

“I greatly appreciate that the High Commissioner for Human Rights will visit Finland so soon after his appointment. As a member of the UN Human Rights Council, Finland is strongly committed to promoting human rights. I hope we will have fruitful discussions on topical questions both bilaterally and together with various stakeholders and the Finnish civil society,” Foreign Minister Haavisto says. 

As the highest-ranking human rights official at the UN, Volker Türk is a global opinion-maker. Before his appointment as High Commissioner in October 2022, Türk served as Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and was responsible for mainstreaming human rights into UN activities, among other duties. Throughout his career, for example as Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR), Türk has actively promoted universal human rights and international protection of vulnerable groups, especially refugees and stateless persons.

Finland supports the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), its independence and the strengthening of its operating conditions. Together with likeminded countries, Finland is acting as a counterforce to the pressures on the promotion, protection and implementation of international human rights. In recent years, Finland has been among the top ten donors to the OHCHR. Finland is a member of the UN Human Rights Council during the term 2022–2024.