share information on human rights defenders, with special focus on human rights awards and laureates
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At a time of unprecedented backlash against them, dozens of the most at-risk human rights defenders (HRDs) from all regions of the world will come together with dignitaries and civil society leaders in Dublin for three days from 23-25 October at Front Line Defenders’ flagship event, the Dublin Platform. This is Front Line Defenders’ 12th Platform, bringing together around 100 HRDs from close to 100 different countries.
First held in 2002, previous Dublin Platforms have given HRDs from almost every country the opportunity to share strategies for advocacy and protection, build solidarity with colleagues around the world, and network with high-level decision makers.
“Human rights defenders represent the best of the human spirit. They steadfastly champion the human rights of others, often at great personal risk, to push for fairer, more just societies,” said Alan Glasgow, Executive Director of Front Line Defenders.
“But the challenges they face are enormous. For their courageous work, human rights defenders are often targeted with the worst forms of violence, surveillance, criminalisation and other repression.
The dignitaries addressing this year’s Platform will include: Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Michael O’Flaherty, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe; and Seán Fleming, Minister of State in Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs. https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements-and-speeches/2024/10/human-rights-defenders-are-oxygen-human-rights-ecosystem
Among the HRDs attending the Dublin Platform are LGBTIQ+ rights defenders; Indigenous, land and environmental rights defenders; women human rights defenders; journalists facing threats and persecution; those fighting against corruption and corporate abuse, and those working on a range of other issues.
The HRDs taking part in the Platform face a wide range of risks, from digital surveillance and online harassment, to death threats and violent attacks, to criminalisation and vilification through smear campaigns. Some work in extremely challenging circumstances amid armed conflicts, crackdowns and other large-scale crises. Front Line Defenders documents the wide array of risks faced by HRDs in its Global Analysis, published annually.
The HRDs in attendance will also attend a special tribute at the HRD Memorial monument in Dublin’s Iveagh Gardens, to commemorate the hundreds of their colleagues around the world who are killed every year for their peaceful work. According to the HRD Memorial initiative – which Front Line Defenders coordinates – at least 300 HRDs across 28 countries were killed in 2023
WITNESS recognizes the great risks that environmental defenders take to stand up to power, and understand that the collection of visual evidence is only one strategy communities use to protect their environmental human rights. It wants to support this movement by sharing information and good practices to help community-based documenters collect visual documentation of environmental human rights crimes and violations so that it can be effectively used in advocacy and accountability processes. This Guide is primarily for community members who:
Just beginning to take shape, the field of business and human rights (BHR) promises to become an important element of teaching and research at leading business schools. As part of the effort to accelerate the evolution of this area, the Global Network of Business Schools was founded in 2017 by the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business, the Alliance Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester, and the Geneva School of Economics and Management at the University of Geneva. This network now comprises 39 business schools. More information about the network’s annual meeting and activities can be found here: https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/global-busi-ness-school-network. On a parallel track, the larger Global Business School Network (GBSN), which connects more than 100 leading business schools from 50 countries to improve access to quality and locally relevant management education for the developing world, is an essential partner in this effort. Many of the schools in the GBSN orbit are located in the global South, where many human rights issues are playing out in real time. Adding human rights to the business school curriculum provides an exciting opportunity for new forms of collaboration among these schools and their counterparts in Europe and North America. GBSN is well-positioned to serve as a resource and community for schools implementing recommendations in this toolkit
About this tool kit edited by Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, Michael Posner and Dan LeClair: Representatives from a number of business school, both professors and administrators, have worked jointly to assemble this tool kit. It includes information and resources explaining the increasing relevance of human rights in a business school context and provides resources that can be helpful to those in other business schools who wish to become involved. Specifically, this document provides an overview of readily available teaching resources, research outlets, and various ways of institutionalizing human rights at business schools. It includes contributions from representatives of schools that are already including human rights in classes, public programs, and research. These testimonies highlight some of the key building blocks for successfully integrating human rights into the business curriculum. The appendix provides a list of contacts at key business schools that stand ready to offer you further advice on how to initiate a human rights program at schools.
Justice and Peace Netherlands is launching a new call for applications for at risk Human Rights Defenders to participate in Shelter City. The deadline for applications is 10 December 2020. Please be aware that special conditions apply because of the COVID-19 situation.
Shelter City provides temporary safe and inspiring spaces for human rights defenders (HRDs) at risk where they re-energise, receive tailor-made support and engage with allies. Shelter City offers the HRD a shelter for three months, during which they will rest, gain new skills, extend their network and raise awareness about the situation in their country. At the end of the programme, participants are expected to return with new tools and energy to carry out their work at home.
From March 2021 onwards, several cities in the Netherlands will receive HRDs for a period of three months.
The 4th annual report 2019 I would like to mention comes in the form of a preface by Mary Harvey of Sports and Human Rights [https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/12/12/mary-harvey-her-goal-is-now-human-rights/]
As my first year leading the Centre for Sport and Human Rights comes to a close, I wanted to reflect on some of what we have achieved in 2019 as we look ahead to where we need to make further progress in 2020. At the 2018 Sporting Chance Forum in Paris, I said we were at a point where the sport and human rights movement had been mobilised, and it was important to translate the theory of change behind the Centre’s creation into concrete action.
The opportunity to demonstrate this came sooner than expected. Prior to my start in January, many of our stakeholders raised the concerning case of the detainment and possible refoulement of refugee footballer Hakeem Al-Araibi, and rightly asked how the Centre was going to respond. My first week on the job, the Centre convened calls to bring together sports bodies, governments, IGOs, corporates, and civil society with the sole objective of freeing Hakeem. The combined efforts and collective action of the Centre, Advisory Council and others not only played an important role in freeing Hakeem, but provided a powerful and indelible example of what we can achieve together..
Building on the resources developed as part of the MSE Platform, our work in 2019 set out to put these tools into action, including by helping strengthen the capacity of those working most closely with sport. We developed new tools which are now with you for consultation (Games Time Risk Guide, Championing Human Rights into the Governance of Sports Bodies – annex specific to Multi-sport governing bodies). In September, we had the opportunity to deliver human rights training to the 53 national federations that make up the Commonwealth Sport family. We also engaged prospective bidding countries for the 2023 Women’s World Cup. Finally, we held briefing calls with our broadcaster stakeholders on human rights issues at events taking place in countries such as Azerbaijan, China and Saudi Arabia.
In May of this year, with the landmark decision from CAS ruling against Caster Semenya, it became clear that human rights awareness needed to be raised and capacity built for those who give legal advice to sports bodies. As part of our developing work on Remedy this year and to begin this important conversation, the Centre hosted a workshop for sports law practitioners with our colleagues at Clifford Chance. The event more than met expectations, with consistent feedback from attendees who welcomed debate on an important topic in need of serious engagement. We are pleased that, with the support of colleagues at Clifford Chance, the workshop will be an annual event going forward.
We took our first steps during 2019 to work with partners in Africa by hosting a workshop in Rabat, Morocco which brought together a number of sports bodies and national human rights institutions from both anglophone and francophone countries on the continent. We took further steps in developing our Africa Strategy by hosting 16 African National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) at an event in Rwanda to discuss child rights and remedy.
On children, the Centre expanded its own capacity by appointing our first senior thematic expert. Millions of children and young people take part in sporting activities every day across the world, and they have the right to participate in sport in a safe and enjoyable environment. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. One of the first actions the Centre took on child rights was to successfully lobby to ensure that references to sport were included in the Guidelines to Optional Protocol 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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On 18 November 2019 the ISHR launched its new guide to the UN Special Procedures, an essential tool for human rights defenders seeking to engage more strategically with these experts, for greater impact on the ground.
ISHR’s Practical Guide to the UN Special Procedures provides an overview of the system of independent human rights experts known as the Special Procedures, and the different ways human rights defenders can make use of it to further their human rights causes. Often their independence allows them to discuss issues deemed too politically ‘sensitive’ at the international level. It also enables them to act swiftly and react publicly against human rights violations. This handbook is intended to be a practical aid to working with the Special Procedures for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and human rights defenders. O
Read the Practical Guide to the UN Special Procedures here
You can find more tips and examples of how to engage with Special Procedures in the ISHR Academy, ISHR’s e-learning space for human rights defenders looking to strengthen their advocacy skills with the UN for greater impact on the ground. Helping human rights defenders strengthen their advocacy skills with the UN
Build your advocacy skills with these tools from ISHR and from around the web
An overview of the international human rights system and the importance of civil society engagement
A quick start guide to getting the most out of the learning modules developed by ISHR
Understand the structure, purpose and mandate of the Human Rights Council and the opportunities for effective engagement
Explore the purpose and mandates of the Special Procedures and how you can work with them to strengthen your advocacy. For more see: https://academy.ishr.ch/
On 10 December, the Diplomacy Training Program (DTP) – an independent NGO affiliated with UNSW Law – will receive the 2019 Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award in Taipei. For more on this and other regional awards, see: http://www.trueheroesfilms.org/thedigest/awards/asia-democracy-and-human-rights-award. This is the first time an Australian organisation has received the award.Justice and Peace Netherlands is launching a new call for human rights defenders at risk to participate in the Shelter City initiative around March 2020. The deadline to apply is 29 November 2019. Shelter City offers human rights defenders (HRDs) at risk a possibility for rest and respite by letting them escape temporarily from a threatening situation. The initiative can benefit human rights defenders that are threatened or under intense pressure due to their work. Shelter City is an initiative coordinated by Justice and Peace Netherlands together with municipalities in the Netherlands, local partners, and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
How does Shelter City work? Through temporary relocation, human rights defenders will be offered a shelter for 3 months in one of the Shelter Cities in the Netherlands, during which they can rest, continue their work in safety, build up capacity (including compulsory training on holistic security), extend their network and raise awareness about the situation in their country. Activities can include meetings with NGOs and public officials, public lectures, rest or leisure, treatment for work-related problems, continuing working remotely on human rights in their country, raising awareness of human rights with the Dutch public or participating in local initiatives organised by the municipality and/or the host organisation. At the end of the programme, participants are expected to return with new tools and energy to continue their work at home. A monthly stipend sufficient to cover costs of living, accommodation, health insurance, visa and return flight tickets to the Netherlands are provided. In addition, participants receive personal accompaniment throughout their stay in the Netherlands.
Who can apply for Shelter City?
For the purposes of Shelter City, the term HRD is intended to refer to the broad range of activists, journalists, scholars, writers, artists, lawyers, civil rights defenders, independent media professionals, civil society members, and others working to peacefully advance human rights and democracy around the world.
In order to be eligible to the Shelter City programme, HRDs must meet the following conditions:
Note that additional factors will be taken into consideration in the final round of selection, such as the added value of a stay in The Netherlands as well as gender, geographic, and thematic balance. Please note that we can only accept HRDs currently residing in a third country under exceptional circumstances. To apply or submit the application of a human rights defender, please fill in the form by clicking ‘Apply Now’ below.. An independent commission will select the participants.
Apply Shelter City 2020 <https://form.jotformeu.com/93072618843361>
Note that the selected human rights defenders will not be automatically allowed into the Shelter City programme as Justice and Peace is not in control of issuing the required visas to enter the Netherlands.
For previous call, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/tag/shelter-city-netherlands/
For more information, please contact us at sheltercity@justiceandpeace.nl
The training will take place in Geneva between 8 and 19 June 2020 and provides defenders with opportunities to put their advocacy skills directly into action at the 44th session of the UN Human Rights Council. The draft programme is here, and how to apply here.
ISHR’s Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme (HRDAP) equips defenders with the knowledge and skills to make strategic use of the international human rights system. It also provides an opportunity for participants to directly engage in lobbying and advocacy activities at the UN level to effect change on the ground back home. As well as receiving training modules on all the UN human rights mechanisms from a range of experts, participants will also have the opportunity to build networks in Geneva and around the world, carry out lobbying of UN member States and UN staff, and learn from peers from a range of regions working on a range of human rights issues.
The programme brings togethers 16 committed human rights defenders from extremely different contexts and working on a wide range of areas: migrant rights; women human rights defenders in conflict, post-conflict & occupation settings; business, environment and human rights; the human rights of LGBTI persons; reclaiming civil society space and increasing protection of human rights defenders.
At the end of the training, 100% of participants were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied” with the overall programme, and they all also felt that they would be able to apply what they learnt to their own day-to-day work. ISHR will look to build upon this success in 2020.
Participants will take part in:
This programme is directed at experienced human rights defenders in non-governmental organisations, with existing advocacy experience at the national level and some prior knowledge of the international human rights system.
In 2020, ISHR is particularly seeking applications from women human rights defenders working in conflict, post conflict and occupation settings. In addition, our work with migrant rights defenders aims to support coalitions and strategies to push back on the criminalisation of solidarity, as well as to ensure that the UN human rights mechanisms do their part to meaningfully raise the issue of migrants’ rights violations.
As we support human rights defenders across all the thematic areas, ISHR is working with these advocates to identify ways to push for safer environments at home, so that they are able to continue their vital work.
If you are interested in applying for ISHR’s training programme, please read the call for applications to check that you comply with the requirements, and apply before midnight Geneva time on 1 December 2019. The link to the online application form can be found in the call for applications. For more information, write to hrdap2020@ishr.ch.
https://www.ishr.ch/news/hrdap-ishr-2020-training-human-rights-defenders-apply-now-hrdap20
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 