From the Editor in Chief

In August 2024, Societas Ethica invited scholars of theological, philosophical, and applied ethics to join its annual conference.This time the conference was held in Sigtuna-a small, rather idyllic town located between Stockholm and Uppsala, nearby the beautiful lake Mlaren.The theme of the conference was, however, anything but idyllic: Societas Ethica gathered to discuss critical perspectives on human rights.The fact that we met in Sweden had an impact on the spirit of our event.Over a short period of time, Sweden has developed from being a country with a high level of social equality and trust into a country where economic and social inequalities are normalized.Human rights which used to be taken seriously by the legislator as well as by the administration are now openly questioned, especially when those rights are claimed by minorities and other unprivileged groups.The final event during the conference in Sigtuna was a panel with representatives of non-governmental organizations of Muslim, Roma, and Smi minorities.The panelists gave us their perspectives on how Swedish civil society uses human rights as instruments to strengthen minorities and individuals-from parallel reporting in the United Nations to democratic education.The panelists told us about the Swedish state's discriminatory actions against minorities, actions that in many cases are legitimized by the idea that the cultures of Muslim, Roma, and other minorities constitute a threat to European democracy and human rights.What are human rights, then?Are they the democratic agency of people such as those represented by our Muslim, Roma, and Smi panelists, or are they yet another instrument of state control?If they are both-and I believe they are-how can we differentiate legitimate and illegitimate conceptions and practices of human rights?In fact, these questions were the main concerns of the scholars who initiated the meeting in Sigtuna.We invited our colleagues from Europe and other parts of the world to contribute to the discussion about whether it is possible to prevent human rights from being primarily an ideology of power.The very fact that human rights are used ideologically, that is, as an instrument of power, should not surprise scholars and practitioners of human rights.Similar to other attractive moral and political visions, human rights are an arena for the struggle between those who use them as an instrument of liberation and those who see human rights as a tool to sustain existing power relations.Therefore, the challenge is not so much to recognize the ideological dimensions of human rights, but to find ways of uncovering particular forms of this ideologization and, most importantly, suggest counterstrategies.Many ethicists and scholars of human rights joined Societas Ethica's three-day conference in Sigtuna to discuss these and related challenges.Our conversations continued after the conference, and this special issue of De Ethica is a way of contributing to the ongoing discussion of the current challenges to human rights.Thus, what we are now offering the reader are articles that develop further the 'Sigtuna dialogue.'