In 2010, the Nordic Journal of Human Rights witnessed some major changes. The layout was completely changed, and new members were appointed to the Editorial Board and Editorial Committee. Both these changes have greatly improved the framework of the Journal. Most important, however, is the quality and topicality of the articles. We proudly note that last year’s issues brought a series of high quality articles written by distinguished experts in their respective fields. We believe the Journal is more interesting and relevant than ever.

Based on the very positive experience with last year’s special issue on land restitution in transitional justice, the Journal will continue to issue special issues from time to time. The other issues will continue to cover a variety of cutting-edge topics within the field of human rights.

We welcome contributions from researchers and practitioners from any discipline where human rights are debated, whether in law or otherwise. It is remarkable how human rights today are being integrated in an increasing number of fields where they previously were not considered very relevant. Yet we require that your contribution passes the double-blind peer-review process performed by the two appointed referees.

The two first articles of this issue are of particular relevance in today’s complex societies with cultural and religious diversity. In the first article Pierre Bosset discusses the Canadian experience in the legal treatment of cultural diversity. He shows us how this experience will be useful to any plural society seeking to interpret and apply human rights. In the second article Pirjola Jari looks critically at the practical operation of human rights in multi-faith societies. He suggests that human rights are not so neutral, objective and unpolitical as we would like to think.

The third article is the second part of Jørgen Aall’s study on waiver of human rights. Aall notes, inter alia, that when it comes to waving substantive human rights, the right-holder’s self-determination is central. At the same time, core elements of substantive rights cannot be waived since they reach beyond the individual right-holder’s sphere. As previously noted, we invite authors to submit analytical comments to Aall’s article for subsequent publishing.

The Editors