Manual on Human Rights Monitoring An Introduction for Human Rights Field Officers PREFACE NORWEGIAN INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Transcription

1 Manual on Human Rights Monitoring An Introduction for Human Rights Field Officers PREFACE NORWEGIAN INSTITUTE OF HUMAN RIGHTS

2 PREFACE Preface second edition The aim of the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights is to actively promote respect for and implementation of internationally recognized human rights. Through its NORDEM-programme (Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights) the Institute supports the work of the United Nations and other Inter-Governmental Organisations by ensuring qualified and well-prepared personnel to human rights field operations. International requests for personnel assistance is accommodated through annual recruitment and deployment of professionals who are trained in human rights field work prior to taking on an assignment. The present Manual on Human Rights Monitoring is the primary source of reference for such pre-deployment training. This second edition of the Manual maintains the basic structure and format of the first edition. It has however, been updated, revised and in some respects significantly adjusted, to reflect the changing reality of international human rights field operations and the feedback of more than 600 delegates who through NORDEM, have been on missions over the last five years. Most notably we have inserted a new chapter 5 to increase the delegates ability to identify human rights issues in practice and in turn to distinguish these from other issues not subject to regulation by international human rights law. The new chapter 6 adopts a broader approach to the task of monitoring human rights than was the case in the previous edition; an approach more consonant with the reality of field based monitoring over a protracted period of time. Lastly, chapter 11 has been added to address the very real issues of personal health, stress management and security awareness, issues which are decisive for effective action by any field staff. Since the Manual was first published in 1997, we have had the pleasure and inspiration of cooperating with various countries where systematized approaches similar to NORDEM, have been initiated to administer the recruitment and predeployment training of civilian personnel to international human rights missions. The training of personnel for human rights missions is facilitated by the increasing number of materials produced for this purpose. In addition to the present Manual, reference is made to the manual on human rights monitoring which, at the time of writing, is being published by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. It is our hope that Inter- Governmental Organisations will seize the opportunity to more systematically draw on and benefit from the increased professionalism of national recruitment mechanisms in the years to come. I would like to recognize the many valuable inputs received from individuals working in and for international partner organisations, most notably the UN and the OSCE, as well as NORDEM delegates and colleagues at the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights who have given their time and comments on various issues throughout the editing process. Special thanks goes to my two co-editors Ingrid Kvammen Ekker and Lalaine Sadiwa and to Diana Przybylski who during her internship at our Institute in the summer of 2000, helped me get started with this new edition. Lastly, I would like to thank Synnøve Ullern and her colleagues at GAN Grafisk who endured my many detailed comments to the final lay-out. As responsibility for NORDEM is handed over to my successor, it is with the hope that the international community will continue its work to enhance the effectiveness and professionalism of human rights field work and with the conviction that NORDEM has a role to play in supporting this work in the years to come. Oslo, December 2001 Kristin Høgdahl 1

3 MANUAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING PREFACE Preface first edition The purposes and principles of the United Nations make protection and promotion of human rights a legitimate concern of the international community. Thus, while protection and promotion of human rights is primarily the responsibility of Governments, the United Nations has a specific role to play through enhancing the prospects for democracy and human rights whenever opportunities arise and wherever action could make a difference. Human rights monitoring is one of several means employed by the United Nation, as well as other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, to promote respect for human rights. The term covers an assortment of different activities and techniques used to diagnose the human rights situation in a given country or region. It includes the collection and analysis of information from a variety of sources, including analysis of domestic laws and judicial decisions affecting human rights in the country or region, and identification of trends of abuse or betterment of human rights conditions. Whenever possible, policy recommendations aimed at the betterment of human rights conditions or the prevention of human rights crises in a country or region should be based on the findings of both long-term monitoring and shortterm field investigations. The High Commissioner for Human Rights has a special role to play in the coordination of human rights activities throughout the system of the United Nations. Through the creation of the post of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at the forty-eighth session of the General Assembly (1993), the international community responded to an evolving need to enhance international cooperation and coordination of human rights activities through the United Nations. In support of the newly established office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs requested the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights through its NORDEM programme (Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights) to elaborate a manual for human rights monitoring. The manual was to be used for training of personnel involved in human rights monitoring and investigation on behalf of the UN. UN human rights field activities encompass both "human rights missions" and "human rights operations". The UN human rights missions are usually of relatively short duration and with narrowly defined tasks. The human rights missions generally consist of individuals or small teams sent out from UN headquarters, e.g. the Centre for Human Rights. The UN human rights operations are of a longer duration, cover large human rights field activities, and consist of a large number of human rights experts as well as other staff. While the individuals and teams which carry out UN human rights missions often require expert knowledge of the issues, human rights field operations commonly include non-human rights experts. This reflects the multi-disciplinary aspect of human rights operations, which again should be reflected in the composition of the operation staff. The mandates of the human rights operation always include tasks that require specialization in human rights, but some functions, however, are such that no single professional background is the sole appropriate one. The monitoring of human rights is one such function which may involve a multitude of tasks and techniques, in addition to the legal analysis of the facts found. The present Manual on Human Rights Monitoring An Introduction for Human Rights Field Officers has been elaborated for the use of human rights field officers who are not necessarily specialized in the field of human rights. The NORDEM Stand-by Force has been used as a example reflecting the composition of professions and experiences among persons being recruited to human rights field operations. The NORDEM Stand-by Force has been jointly established by the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights and the Norwegian Refugee Council to develop general preparedness in the field of democracy and human rights. Assignments undertaken by the NORDEM Stand-by Force have also been used to indicate which areas are most urgently in need of guidelines, training material and manuals. This manual therefore contains a compilation of manuals on specific human rights issues. Two of the chapters have previously been published as separate issue-specific manuals, the other chapters have been prepared to cover remaining essential and requested issues within an overall manual on human rights monitoring. The distance separating a human rights officer in the field from the decision and policy makers at the centre of the UN system may be considerable. To be able to orient oneself within such a complex system as the UN, and to understand the possibilities and limitations of working as a field officer, part one of this manual focuses on a description of the international human rights machinery and its dynamics, while part two gives guidelines on how to work with human rights monitoring within specific issue areas. The first and general part (chapters 1-4) gives an introduction to the international human rights machinery, principally that which falls under the responsibility of the UN, but other intergovernmental organizations and non-governmental organizations are also touched upon. While chapters 2 and 4 are relatively static in form, chapter 3 gives a more dynamic presentation of what it entails to work for the UN or other intergovernmental organizations. The second and specific part (chapters 5-10) includes: a general introduction to human rights monitoring and a methodology for human rights fact-finding (chapter 5); a methodology for monitoring the administration of justice, such as law enforcement officials and prisons (chapter 7); a manual for trial observation (chapter 8); and a manual for election observation (chapter 9). We have included three sub-sections (chapter 6) on monitoring the situation of specific rights holders (women, children and minorities), even though such monitoring is not widespread within human rights field operations in areas of conflict. However, we find that both the systematic violence against women in times of war, the situation of children in armed conflict, and the aspect of minorities rights in today s conflicts, give substantial support to the view that the monitoring of the situation of these groups should be included in general human rights monitoring in areas of conflict. By giving the manual its present design of individually bound chapters, the users of the manual may bring with them to the field those parts of the manual needed for a particular assignment. This design will also allow for the reediting of chapters or elaboration of new ones as new experiences and insight allow. We hope, for example, that chapter 4, which gives an introduction to the formal relation between NGOs and the UN system, in a later edition may share more of the experience of field operations in relating to NGOs and their work in the field. It is our hope that the manual will further a constructive debate on the various topics it presents, and that these discussions may improve and concretize the contents of each chapter and lead to the insertion of new chapters where topical gaps are identified. We have also included an article (chapter 10) on "Case Preparation for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia". This chapter gives an introduction to the work of international tribunals. Even though it is not a "manual" in its strict sense, we have found it important to include this chapter, to give human rights monitors and investigators an understanding of how such tribunals work, particularly with regard to the problems and issues encountered in the investigations. Our aim in including this chapter is to provide the necessary background to enable the human rights monitors and investigators to draw the necessary dis- 2 3

4 MANUAL ON HUMAN RIGHTS MONITORING tinction between UN human rights monitoring operations and international human rights tribunals. Even though some of the techniques used are similar, it would be wrong and dangerous for a UN monitor to assume that their work could replace or somehow duplicate the work of an investigation team attached to one of the international tribunals. The process of elaborating this manual has been long and many people have been involved. We would like to thank all the authors of the individual chapters of the manual, who by sharing their knowledge and experiences with us have made this publication possible. We would like to thank Asbjørn Eide, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, and Gudmundur Alfredsson, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, for their involvement from the very beginning and their patience with us in the process. A special thank to Gudmundur Alfredsson for taking part in the consultations with the Human Rights Centre, for sharing with us relevant literature and for taking part in the "reference group", going through the preliminary draft of the manual. Likewise, we thank Craig Mokhiber, Human Rights Centre, for sharing with us the Human Rights Centre s commitment to human rights training, Morten Bergsmo, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; and Rolf Ring, Raoul Wallenberg Institute, for participating in consultative meetings. We are grateful to Diego García-Sayán, Andean Commission of Jurists; David Petraseck, consultant; Kristin Høgdahl, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights/NORDEM; and members of the NORDEM Stand-by Force including Øyvind Hoel, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; Øyvind Olsen, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; Kathrine Bierring, human rights monitor Bosnia, Ingvild Burkey and Per Midteide, both peace monitors in South Africa; for their thorough comments on the whole or parts of the preliminary draft of the manual. We are also indebted to all the organizations that responded to our requests for information and helped us in elaborating this project. Lastly, we would like to thank Gunnar M. Karlsen and Knut Harald Bakketun who worked diligently on lay-out and all other details needed to bring the manual the last steps on the way to a finished product. It is our hope that this manual can serve not only as a guide in the field, but also as an input to the discussion on how to improve human rights field operations. We hope that this manual can become a dynamic material, where new knowledge, insights and experiences can be included both in forms of new chapters covering new issues, and through making existing chapters more operative and relevant for conducting field work. Any comments that can improve this manual as a tool for human rights monitoring, are very much welcome. Oslo, February 1997 Hege Araldsen and Øyvind W. Thiis (editors) 4

5 Kristin Høgdahl is Project Director ( ) of the Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights (NORDEM) based at the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights. She is a political scientist, has written on human rights issues in Central America and election observation, and has designed and conducted training in human rights monitoring and election observation since She has headed Amnesty International s programme on human rights education and participated in a governmental commission to review legislation on the freedom of expression in Norway. Ingrid Kvammen Ekker is a political scientist. Her thesis for the degree cand. polit. focuses on international election observation in Africa in the 1990s. Ekker has been a student researcher at the UN programme at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs ( ), and has worked part-time at the Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights (NORDEM) at the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights ( ). Ekker is a member of the NORDEM stand-by force, and was an international observer at Mozambique s Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Lalaine Sadiwa is a political scientist and is the Programme Director for South Africa at the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights. She worked as Education Officer at the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines and as Training Manager at the Human Rights Institute of South Africa. She has initiated and co-ordinated human rights courses in the Philippines, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Morocco, the Netherlands and Norway. She was co-editor of the 1996 Yearbook on Human Rights in Developing Countries and editor of Human Rights Theories and Practices (1997). The Norwegian Institute of Human Rights aims to contribute to the realisation of internationally recognised human rights, through research and reporting, teaching, advisory services, information and documentation. The Institute was founded in 1987 and is organised as an inter-disciplinary center under the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo. Since 2001 the institute has been designated as the National Institution for Human Rights in Norway. The Norwegian Resource Bank for Democracy and Human Rights NORDEM was established at the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights in 1993 with the support of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. NORDEM aims to accommodate international requests for personnel assistance in subject areas relevant to the promotion of human rights. Requests for personnel to human rights field operations are serviced through the NORDEM Stand-by Force which is operated jointly with the Norwegian Refugee Council. The Manual on Human Rights Monitoring has been developed at the request of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Manual is integral to the generic training provided to members of the NORDEM Stand-by Force when preparing them for human rights field operations. This is a revised edition (2001) of the Manual which was first published in The new edition includes two new chapters (5 and 11), two rewritten chapters (1 and 6) and the remaining chapters are updated according to events and new developments in the field of human rights since