ASSESS PROGRESSES & SET-BACKS
The HPS Department supports all gva4HR training activities. It is composed by the Internship and Fellowship Program (HPS), the UN Monitoring (UNM) and the HR Policy Studies (HPS).
The department is in charge of monitoring international human rights negotiations, covering all meetings of UN human rights bodies, analyzing the main trends, and informing our trainers and partners in the field. Logically, HPS is entrusted with the preparation of gva4HR’s brainstorming sessions and Expert Seminars and Geneva Courses.
Our activities and curriculum have been adapted and updated to address the emergent debates, topics and challenges as well as future threats to human rights, the rule of law and democracy for instance IA and NET[i], neuro-technologies[ii], human rights and outer space[iii], civic space and democracy, sexual orientation and gender identity, self-determination, women’s and child’s rights, ecocide, …
Interns and Fellows support gva4hr in the process of closely following these topics and situation to keep our institutional knowledge
Responsive to the legacy of, past and present, colonial and oppression systems and policies as well as accounting for the centuries of systemic racialised and gendered violations and discriminations, our courses and trainings focus on the challenges and opportunities of the international human rights system and of our times.
The studies and activities of gva4HR do also address the new trends and reforms within the United Nations ecosystem and in international relations. New topics, new mechanisms and new tools emerge along with new dynamics at play. The rise of new matters of concerns affecting or impacting human rights in national, regional and international settings leads to new initiatives and changes in policies (the Common Agenda[iv] and Summit of the Future[v], reform/strengthening of HR-Council, Special Procedures, UN HR Treaty Bodies…) these are a matter of concern and study for gva4HR.
Framing all our activities, programmes and projects is the aim to bring awareness and understanding on the opportunities and risks while decolonising the theory and pedagogical practices of human rights.
[i] New emergent Technologies – https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/advisory-committee/digital-technologiesand-hr
[ii] https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/advisory-committee/neurotechnologies-and-human-rights
[iii] https://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/ourwork/spacelaw/index.html
[iv] https://www.un.org/en/common-agenda
[v] https://www.un.org/en/summit-of-the-future
Internship & Fellowship Programme – HPS IFP
HPS has a multidisciplinary and cross-regional team. Unpaid Internships and fellowships are usually from 3 to 6 months. gva4HR selects students and graduates in international relations, international law, human rights, political science and economics, who are motivated in the promotion and protection of human rights and social justice.
For 2024 so far, we have welcomed 9 interns and fellows who are supporting our activities and work. In 2022 and 2023 we had the privilege to welcome and support 12 fellows and interns. In 2021, we welcomed 13 interns and fellows.
In 2020, the Human Rights Studies Policies Department welcomed 11 interns in the first and second semester.
In 2019, HPS trained 18 interns and fellows. In 2018, HPS trained 17 interns and fellows. In 2016, HPS welcomed 20 interns and fellows. In 2015, HPS welcomed 28 interns and fellows. Since 2023 we have trained several hundreds of interns from which some became Associates and members of our Circle of Study or/and Support.
United Nations Monitoring – HPS UNM
Under this programme, HPS attends all the ordinary and special sessions of the HR-Council and its mechanisms. It also monitors all the meetings of the treaty bodies taking place in Geneva. The programme prepares analytical summaries of the sessions as well as special documentation at the request of coalitions and networks in the regions. This will be again the priority of the HPS Department.
Special attention shall be given to the ongoing and new trends in the deliberations and decisions of all these UN bodies.
Expert Seminars in Geneva – gva4HR GSS
Defenders and NGOs in the regions work under difficult conditions. Our 1997 consultation process with partners in the regions highlighted their demand for immediate implementation of the international standards, and their specific concerns for humanitarian law; macroeconomic issues (economic system as source of violations); the struggle against impunity; and the protection of defenders. Since then, other main concerns emerged in our working relations with partners: indigenous peoples’ rights and violence against women. All these issues are raised in all gva4HR Courses and Seminars.
| GHR HUMAN RIGHTS STUDIES (HRS) |
The Human Rights Studies (HRS) of our Programme of Human Rights Policy Studies are undertaken by GHR members in close cooperation with NGOs and defenders from the regions and with partners in the academic world. Long-term interns and fellows also contribute through their monitoring reports and their documentary research. With the rapid changes occurring in the UN system, these studies are regularly updated. They are indispensable to keep expertise on the issues we are teaching.
2.1 Study on special procedures
The first study project concerned the core activity of GHR, the UN Special procedures and treaty bodies. Communications were presented to Colloquiums of the ‘Centre de Recherche sur les Droits de l’Homme’ (University Pantheon-Assas, Paris) on the confidential procedure (September 2004); and on the origins and challenges of the special procedures (November 2016). The analysis was also presented to the World Assembly of the Dominicans (Salamanca, September 2016).
2.2 Study on NGOs rights in the UN
This project concerned not only the NGOs with consultative status with ECOSOC, but also the initiatives to promote access to the non status organizations from the regions in different mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights and of the HR-Council, as well as in the UN World Conferences. Part of this study, on the use of the consultative status, resulted in a Chapter entitled ‘NGOs, the UN and human rights‘ was published in the collective book ‘100 Years of Multilateralism in Geneva. From the League of Nations to the UN’ [1] .
2.3 Study on indigenous peoples’ rights
The study was initiated to prepare GHR 2014 Expert Seminar preparing the World Assembly of Indigenous Peoples. A major focus is the analysis of the reports prepared by the experts for the sessions of the Permanent Forum and of EMRIP.
2.4 Study on enforced disappearances
With the study on enforced disappearances, GHR lectured at several conferences, such as on the creation of the WGEID the International Seminar ‘Sin Rastro’ (‘without trail’), which took place in Bogotà in June 2008. This ongoing study is essential for the preparation of our regular Expert Seminars on the matter.
2.5 Study on freedom of religions
The study on religious freedom was presented at the Universities of Padova (September 2021, December 2015), at the Human Rights Institute of the Catholic University of Lyon (January 2020) and in series of Workshops for NGOs, in particular for the South Asia Forum on FoRB (December 2018).
2.6 Study on Covid-19 and the UN
This study project soon revealed that in the Covid-19 crisis, a comprehensive health policy was absent, that most governments hesitated on the policy to be followed, and that their restrictive measures would probably ignore their human rights impact. A new thinking, even a leadership coming from civil society, was required. The study helped listing the proposals to be made for the UN mechanisms and procedures, to prepare GHR message of solidarity, commitment and hope (24 March 2020) and the proposals for the Statement of the President of the HR-Council (22 April 2020). The study was also presented in several lectures, such as the Course of 12 February 2021 to the students of the Human Rights Institute of Lyon.
Study on the strategies of authoritarian states in the UN human rights system
Published by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, February 2022
Adrien-C. Zoller ‘Strategies of Authoritarian States in the UN Human Rights System: a closer look at the UN Human Rights Council’, Multilateral Dialogue Konrad Adenauer Foundation Geneva, February 2022, 53 pages
Strategies-of-Authoritarian-States-regarding-the-UN-Human-Rights-System-in-particular-in-the-UN-Human-Rights-Council-Zoller-20222.7 Study on the protection role of NGOs
At the proposal of one of its member, Prof. Bertrand Ramcharan, former High Commissioner for Human Rights, the board of GHR initiated in August 2021 a study process on the protection role of human rights NGOs to highlight the (often unknown) essential role played by NGOs in the building-up of the UN human rights system. Besides the study of GHR, a hundred of 100 NGOs have been invited to contribute. A collective publication of several hundreds of pages is expected for the second Semester 2022. The four editors are Prof. Bertrand Ramcharan, Mrs. Penny Parker, Mrs. Rachel Brett and Prof. Ann Marie Clark. This book of several hundreds of pages is expected for the second Semester 2022.
[1] Edited by Olga Hidalgo-Weber & Bernard Lescaze. Box set of 2 books, available in English and French. Editions Suzanne Hurter, September 2020, 720 pages,