Nordic Multiculturalism: Commonalities and Differences

The five Nordic countries may be thought of as quite similar in many ways so that we would expect commonalities rather than differences among them. In order to test this hypothesis, I have systematically examined the reports and the responses from the supervisory bodies to five different human rights conventions, dealing with civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, the rights of women and children and racial discrimination. I have also included complaints under the five conventions. To test for differences among types of minorities, indigenous peoples, national minorities and immigrants have been treated separately. The main finding is that differences are too strong among the five countries to enable us to talk of a common Nordic approach to multiculturalism.