Publication – Special Issue on Human Rights and Psychology – Available with OPEN ACCESS

Derek Indoe, Merry Bullock, and Polli HagenaarsPsychology and human rights—introduction to the special issue, Editorial, International Journal of Psychology: Volume 59, Issue 2, Pages: i-iv, 215-352, April 2024,

The role of human rights in psychology and the incorporation of human rights perspectives and documents into psychological research, service and action has been gaining attention over the last years. This special issue continues that attention with articles proposing general models of the interaction of human rights and psychological processes, and providing specific examples of how a human rights perspective might be operationalized and enacted in our work.

Although human rights have existed for a long time in different regions and religions, today they find their global basis in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948). The core principle guiding the UDHR is ‘the inherent equal dignity of all members of the human family’. The human dignity of every person is exercised and upheld by their own agency, and not dependent on the goodwill of others. This means that the focus of human rights implementation must move beyond legal and intergovernmental relations, to be ‘people-centered’. That is, beyond the global and overarching legal implications of the UDHR and its subsequent Covenants and Conventions, the knowledge and responsibility of the profession and practice of psychology is essential for a society grounded in a human rights framework.

Read on: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/1464066x/2024/59/2

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