HPT_Session 8: Developing Strategies: Ten Steps For Moving Forward

Activities

Activity 1
(5 minutes)
Introduce the session objectives using Overhead Transparency 8.1.

Activity 2
(60 minutes)
Explain that in this session, you will highlight step by step how to make human rights a practical and operational tool for field work in humanitarian action. As mentioned in the introduction to this session, you can either make a presentation with the help of Overhead Transparencies 8.2 to 8.17 and discuss practical strategies after each step, or you can present only the headings of each step and let participants discuss what each step may entail.

Make sure to cover the following points:

Step 1: Using coherent and consistent human rights terminology where appropriate

Human rights obligations are the voluntarily confirmed obligations of states towards the persons within their jurisdiction. As a result of the Vienna Conference on Human Rights in 1993, states declared that human rights are the "legitimate concern" of the international community. The nature of the obligation is different depending on the right we are concerned with: from consistent efforts towards meeting an effective right to health within the total of available resources -- to the absolute prohibition of torture. In other words, we are including the full spectrum of human rights. In this context, all emergency aid and development work is by definition stepping in to "deliver" human rights (such as the right to food) where a state is unwilling or unable to fulfill those obligations.

At the individual level you should speak of things for what they are, and recognize people as rights-holders, not just victims in need of assistance. At the organizational level it is important to recognize that complex emergencies are, in fact, human rights crises. Thus, "beneficiaries" of humanitarian aid are rights-holders. That said, human rights law is not an end in itself, rather a tool for improving the protection of civilians in situations of armed conflict.

(Overhead Transparencies 8.3 and 8.4)

Step 2: Defining and understanding our work in human rights terms

The human rights framework is a conceptual one, which renders unnecessary an artificial distinction between "assistance" and "protection" activities. It is the human rights framework which has the potential to guide us out of the perceived tensions and dilemmas of that approach. The framework is itself a human rights advocacy approach - because rights language empowers rights-holders. International human rights law is non-negotiable, which we must be consistent in applying. It is not in our interest to undermine human rights law by ignoring it, nor is it in our interest to renegotiate human rights standards and make them weaker, because that is to fail those rights-holders we are intended to support. The reason is simple: a non-human rights approach simply does not work.

At the individual level, understand the human rights framework, place what you do within it, and use the appropriate human rights terms to describe it. At the organizational level, examine what it means to effectively apply it as an organization. Applying the framework inside the organization may include addressing issues such as recruitment of staff, training, creating an analysis unit within Headquarters, translating human rights lessons to be learned from past into new standards procedures, train to apply them, etc.

(Overhead Transparencies 8.5 and 8.6)

Step 3: Preparatory stages of operationalizing the human rights framework

In the preparatory stages in your office or organization, you need to go through a certain process when adopting the human rights-based approach. The following are essential elements of the process needed to operationalize the human rights framework:

Organizational response required to ensure consistency within the organization from field officer to officer, operation to operation (e.g. UNICEF’s efforts to be predictable in emergency response and developing core corporate capacities). This may be done by, for example, appointing a focal point/focal points at central or Headquarters level to concentrate on human rights issues and consistency in application.

Ensuring rational division of labour for co-ordination with others by clarifying which legal principles are directly relevant to your work, and going through the process of how you will operationalize it in practice.

It may be necessary to get any needed "thinking power" either internal or external. This means involving specialists in human rights law and practice, as well as experts in the programmatic aspects of your organization, in order to analyze how to operationalize the framework. Starting to think at the road-block is too late.

(Overhead Transparency 8.7)

Step 4: Seeing prevention of human rights abuses and humanitarian crises as a long term goal

"Today’s human rights violations are tomorrow’s conflicts" (the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights). Prevention of emergencies or human rights crises is the most effective "humanitarian" strategy. Prevention is a long-term goal, but can only start with making use of the human rights framework.

Thus, at the individual level the human rights approach entails a responsibility to be informed of the human rights framework available. At the organizational level it is our duty to use human rights information and analysis to found strategies for "early warning", and "contingency planning", as well as to contribute our data to the human rights analysis of the human rights mechanisms such as treaty monitoring bodies and special rapporteurs. Accordingly, the activities that we engage in go both ways: making use of information already available, and contributing to the human rights analysis.

(Overhead Transparency 8.8)

Step 5: Integrating human rights into the programme cycle: involving the beneficiaries in the assessment

In the assessment process you should respect the right to participate in public life (a humanitarian principle based on international human rights law, for example Article 12 of the CRC) by identifying issues and problems with the host society. This includes involving the local civil society, the rights-holders themselves, and the state whose obligations are at issue -- from community to national levels. This effort particularly applies to the participation of women wherever they are excluded in effect (even if not by law) through structural discrimination. In practice this may mean creating local human rights groups, or supporting already existing ones.

(Overhead Transparency 8.9)

Step 6: Asking the right question: WHY?

In the analysis process you should be pooling information towards common analysis of the human rights situation with other partners in the system by asking why the problems are occurring. It is about changing the way we measure success, namely did we address the why? If not, what were the human rights consequences? The many levels of causality must be understood. In addition the many inter-linkages of rights (both the other rights of the same rights-holders -- as well as the occasional need to balance with the rights of others), issues must be understood in a holistic way.

For example, in addressing a situation where children were not going to school, an aid worker tried to convince children to go back to school. It was only when asking the question "why", the aid worker realized that children were not going to school, because there were no teachers from these particular children’s ethnic group in the school. In fact, teachers had been recruited along ethnic lines to prevent other ethnic groups from becoming educated.

(Overhead Transparency 8.10)

Step 7: Maximizing the usefulness of the applicable law and disseminating it

It is recognized that certain fundamental human rights provisions reflected in human rights and humanitarian law are applicable in all situations. While human rights law can be derogated from in some circumstances, this may not be done in relation to certain basic human rights. Some instruments have universal applicability in all senses of the word. No derogation are allowed from the CRC, but all rights belong to all persons at all times, in all situations.

Fundamental human rights standards must be part of an overall applicable protection framework. Part of the long-term strategy will include building this protection framework through negotiating various standards into national law, strengthening the knowledge of those standards among law enforcement officials and the judiciary, and training of local communities.

In certain situations there may be no particular legal framework available, because a certain territory is held by a non-state entity. As we have seen in the preceding chapters, large parts of international human rights law are also recognized as international customary law, and would therefore be applicable even if there is no formal treaty in existence. With the adoption of the Statute for the International Criminal Court, it has been widely accepted, that some crimes are of such a serious nature, that no matter when and where they are committed, the act in itself triggers individual responsibility.

In such situations it is still possible to build a protection framework. For example, it may be necessary for humanitarian actors to adopt agreements with non-state actors, or a government which have not been recognized. As mentioned above, we should not undermine international human rights law by either ignoring it, or by renegotiating the standards in doing so. Adopting agreements with non-state entities may be useful tools for humanitarian operations in certain circumstances.

The human rights approach in emergencies entails not only knowing the human rights framework and humanitarian principles, but it also entails sharing it with others or "disseminating" or "promoting" it. Part of the work to be done on the ground is also to develop an "operational checklist", so as to know how to respond to the human rights needs in our daily work (modus operandi). Some of these checklists will involve long term projects, such as assisting the state in adopting internal legislation and standards that conform with international human rights law.

(Overhead Transparencies 8.11 and 8.12)

Step 8: Working with local capacities to address the root causes

An essential element of empowerment is the clear use of human rights language where appropriate and making people aware of what their rights are. Negotiating the "right to food" is profoundly different in concept and meaning to a formulation such as the "need for food". In itself, use of appropriate human rights language to describe our work is advocacy vis-a-vis the host governments, non-state entities, donor states, and so on. In aid work it is important to incorporate the right to participate in decisions which fundamentally affect your life. For example, it would be good to consider what local capacity there is to address the root causes, as well as what you can do to support their efforts.

First, this recalls that the responsibility for addressing rights of those within a state’s jurisdiction is that of the host state itself.

Second, for local civil society, it reflects the importance of reinforcing and not replacing local efforts to demand and defend their human rights (part of humanitarian principles).

Third, this is an element of sustainability - which should be demanded by donors as a requirement of efficiency in spending scarce resources, and effectiveness in achieving results.

Fourth, it emphasizes that a human rights-based approach does not mean doing more -- just doing it in a rights-empowering way.

Consider, for example, the statement made in the final paragraph of the Machel study on the Impact of Armed Conflict of Children: "Let us claim children as ‘zones of peace’". The idea behind these words is to use the child as an entry point in peace negotiations, not only in negotiating temporary "days of tranquillity" and "safe zones", but also in negotiating durable peace. In many protracted conflicts, it would seem like there are few common interests among the warring parties, however, children would be a common point of interest for everyone. If we were truly to involve the children and women, and listen to their views, this would potentially be a powerful tool in striving towards peace. After all, the children have a right to express their views "freely in all matters affecting the child" and they make up more than half of the beneficiaries.

(Overhead Transparency 8.13)

Step 9: Linking the work at the local level with that taking place at the international level

The activities at the local level should at the same time be supported by advocacy work at the international level. The humanitarian community as a whole must use a common human rights-based analysis of the problem:

It becomes much easier to rationally divide up responsibilities according to each organization’s strengths, resources and experience. As an element, for example, if the most appropriate human rights partner for a particular task (e.g. the OHCHR) is under-resourced, it is all of our business to ensure this is addressed, in order to avoid "weak links" in the human rights chain which would in turn weaken our inter-linked human rights work.

It is impossible for UNICEF to address every single issue relating to children. Creating an alliance of partnerships at both the local and international level therefore is pertinent to a holistic child rights approach. Making the ‘first call’ for children not only means providing children with humanitarian aid first, but it also means strengthening the alliance of organizations working for children and thereby maximizing the protection of the rights of the child.

This is not to be understood or applied in order to simply diffuse responsibility for human rights. Rather, in addition to responsibility for our own human rights approaches in our direct work -- we are clearly also sharing responsibility to ensure respect for human rights (by analogy with Covenant on Civil and Political Rights). The human rights framework will, in fact, require you to work and negotiate with partners that you maybe traditionally have not worked with, including non-state entities.

We have under-estimated the ultimate potential power of coherent, consistent and concerted advocacy -- if all humanitarian actors work together the outcome will be much more powerful.

The above steps are essential to ensure that human rights-appropriate analysis and responses are applied, and to ensure causes are addressed by the system as a whole with mutually complementary efforts providing what used to be (artificially) divided into "protection" and "assistance" activities. These are now clearly understood as encompassed our combined human rights roles.

(Overhead Transparencies 8.14 and 8.15)

Step 10: Entering the experience into a learning cycle

For organizational learning it is important to work with feedback on the successes and failures of the operational human rights practice. These should be fed into a cycle of learning and evaluating back into human rights policy - and into training. Questions to ask in a process of evaluating the human rights work could be the following:

Have we looked at how the work we are already doing reflects existing human rights standards?

Have we thought about what the human rights implications are of each of our programmes, in existing programmes as well as in planned ones?
How have we applied the right to participate - including in this evaluation process itself?
How have we operationalized the right of women not to be discriminated against?
How do we disaggregate data in problem assessment and in evaluation to trace possible discriminatory effects?
How have we had a mutually-reinforcing relationship with the human rights mechanisms?
Have our personnel policies (gender, in particular) reflected our human rights framework? Do we carry out human rights advocacy by example?
Have we understood the causes, the levels of causality and the linkages between human rights issues?
Have we worked together with other humanitarian organizations and learned from each other?

(Overhead Transparencies 8.16 and 8.17)

Distribute Reading 8.1. Explain that the reading contains the information you just covered.

Activity 3
(60 minutes)
Exercise on negotiating a humanitarian principles framework based on international human rights

The following exercise requires a fair amount of training in international human rights and humanitarian law. If the audience does not have the background and knowledge required to carry out this exercise, you may wish to just distribute one of the agreements on principled aid (Handouts 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 or 8.5) to the groups. In that case, highlight some of the points raised in the answer key.

However, if this is the last session of a full five-day workshop, or if participants have obtained solid background knowledge from elsewhere, proceed as described below.

This exercise is designed to stimulate the participants who took part in the entire workshop; the aim is that the trainee would leave the final session feeling that s/he has been equipped with a set of strategies and ideas rather than dilemmas. In the handout section you will find three different agreements reached on the principles of aid in three different situations: Southern Sudan (Handout 8.1), Afghanistan (Handout 8.2), Liberia (Handout 8.3) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Handout 8.5).

Divide the participants into two to four groups. Distribute copies of Handout 8.1 to group 1, of Handout 8.2 to group 2, of Handout 8.3 to group 3, and Handout 8.5 to group 4. The number of participants will determine how many groups you have. Ask each group to study the agreement, then to discuss the questions listed in Handout 8.4 (which you should distribute to all participants).

Tell the groups that they have 40 minutes to complete the exercise.

Group work

Study the agreement that the facilitator distributed to you. Discuss the following questions in your group. Your group should be ready to share and discuss the answers in plenary.

Are these agreements contradictory to international human rights and humanitarian law or do they reflect that body of law? How important would it be for humanitarian action to be persistent on applying internationally recognized standards? What implications will not applying existing standards have on future activities in that particular situation and elsewhere?

In negotiating this type of agreements, what body/bodies of law should the international community focus on?
Is it appropriate to include both principles about how aid is to be delivered as well as human rights standards in one and the same agreement, or would you prefer separating the two? Explain the reasoning behind your answer.
Are there other problems you notice in going through the agreements? Are there issues that you would do differently if you were given a second chance?
With regard to the situation that you are working in, would a similar document be of any use? In your particular situation, what do you see as the advantages and disadvantages with adopting a similar agreement?

Invite the groups to discuss their answers in plenary. Lead the discussion that should take approx. 20 minutes.

Answer key

The idea with the first question is to make the participants look carefully at the texts in front of them and analyze them from a human rights point of view. The question whether the language reflects international human rights law will almost always be a question of interpretation, and it is not certain that the groups will find language which they think does not fulfill international standards. Article 13 of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the UN makes mention of that access for women to health care and education will be gradual, which can be interpreted as a discriminatory action which would be a violation of one of the underpinning principles of international human rights law.

It is important to point out that human rights cannot be culturally relative, but that human rights are legal standards, some of which cannot be limited or derogated from. Minimum standards that have already been agreed upon on the international level cannot be renegotiated. Therefore, reference to the Shari’a in Article 11 of the MoU between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the UN is in contradiction with human rights law.

For those who study the Principles of engagement for emergency humanitarian assistance in the Democratic Republic of Congo it will be important to note the wide range of language mistakes (including reference to International Human Law under the section on human rights) and lack of detail and connection with international human rights standards.

The SPLM-United/OLS agreement on Ground Rules will have the most relevance in terms of providing a framework that will be supportive of efforts to further strengthen knowledge of human rights instruments and standards on the ground. This agreement makes reference to important human rights instruments and standards, at the same time as it provides a framework for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

The main point to be made, however, is that it is extremely important for negotiation teams to include human rights expertise, so as not to undermine existing human rights law. The danger being that if in one case you allow negotiation on already existing standards, the next time this type of negotiation is taking place, it will be likely that you have to give up even more.

The basis for this type of agreement should be what has been covered in this module. All of those instruments and provisions will be relevant. It is useful to refer to them explicitly, and even to extract exact language from human rights and humanitarian law instruments.

In a humanitarian principles framework, both the basic human rights standards and principles about how aid should be delivered are extremely important. In humanitarian action they go hand in hand. The reason why it is so important to include human rights standards in this type of agreement, is that there may be no other legal framework applicable on which basis everyday work can be carried out. If a rebel movement is in charge of that particular area where the agreement applies, together with basic humanitarian legal standards and customary international law, it may be the only tool at hand.

The two last questions have been posed to allow participants form their own views about this type of agreement. Not all participants have to agree that this type of agreements are useful. It may be useful to ask if there is someone in the room who opposes the conclusion of agreements like these ones, and what the reason behind this opinion is.

Activity 4
(2 minutes)
Wrap up the session by referring back to the session objectives (Overhead Transparency 8.1).

Activity 5
(20 minutes)
Before closing the workshop, make sure that participants complete the workshop evaluation. Distribute either the workshop evaluation forms or index cards. If you are using evaluation forms, review the questions on the forms. If you are using index cards, explain that participants should write five "ups" and five "downs" of the workshop on the cards. If possible, they should write one idea per card.

Allow about 20 minutes for all participants to complete the forms or cards. Stress the importance of submitting these forms to the workshop co-ordinator before the end of the workshop.

Activity 6
(5 minutes)
Conclude the workshop by emphasizing the following points:

We hope that the exercise you just completed and which concludes the training, has allowed you to apply the new skills you acquired over the last five days.
Overall, we hope that the training has provided you with some practical ideas about how to move forward with a human rights framework, both at the organizational and personal level. The challenges posed at the outset of the training are still there, but we think and hope that you are now better equipped to deal with them.
We also hope that the training has provided you with some background on international legal tools that are available, both from the human rights and humanitarian law instruments that we have discussed.
The reading materials you are leaving with will be good reference materials providing practical examples, but you should also make a habit of finding legal texts and referring to them whenever possible. It may, for example, be a good exercise to try the human rights website of the OHCHR at www.hchr.ch.