What are Human Rights Based Approaches?

1. What are Human Rights • Based Approaches?

2. A human rights-based approach is a process which applies certain core principles aimed at ensuring the full enjoyment of human rights by all

3. HRBA to what? • Development (social, economic, human, MDGs) • Humanitarian aid • Peace-keeping • Trade/investment/privatisation • etc

4. Development-security-human rights … the human family will not enjoy development without security, it will not enjoy security without development, and it will not enjoy either without respect for human rights – Kofi Annan 2005

5. HRBA milestones……not new • 1940s UN Charter • 1997 SG Programme for Reform -HR to be fully integrated into all areas of work • 1994 Rwanda genocide • 2000 UN Human Development Report: decent standard of living, adequate nutrition, healthcare, education, decent work, protection against calamities, are not just development goals…they are also human rights • 2003 Stamford ‘Common Understanding’

6. Expressly apply the int’l legal framework Empowerment Participation Non-discrimination & vulnerable groups Accountability 5 CORE LEGAL PRINCIPLES of HRBA

7. 1. Expressly apply the int’l legal framework • The nature of the treaty obligations – respect, protect, fulfil • Universality, inalienability; indivisibility, interdependence, inter-relatedness • Immediate obligations (ensure core minimum, take steps, non-discrimination) - progressive realisation to maximum of available resources • Standards made by states & evolving

8. 2. Empowerment • Empowerment a precondition for meaningful participation • Treaty obligation to actively inform the public regarding the content of the HR treaties, Treaty bodies, availability of remedies etc • Requires education, information, expectation not charity

9. 3. Participation • The right to ‘active, free & meaningful’ participation • A means and an end in itself • A composite right - expression, assembly, association, right to vote, stand for election, participate in one’s development… • Who participates? How, on what issues?, at what stages?, with access to what information? to what degree of influence? • Who decides the answers to these questions? – and how?

10. 4. Non-Discrimination & Vulnerable Groups • Equality and non-discrimination • Disaggregation of data by race, religion etc • Vulnerability to human rights violations – varies with time, context, type of human right

11. 5. Accountability: legal & political • Due process rights (equality before the law, access to justice) • Right to effective remedies: judicial, administrative…. • Right to participate e.g in M&E of development plans, Access to information • Clarity regarding duties and duty-holders • Justiciability of ESC rights

12. What is specific to HRBA ? • People holders of rights - not merely beneficiaries • Programming framed by int’l HR law, informed at all stages by international/regional HR mechanisms • Legitimacy: states’ mutual accountability under treaties – same framework applies to development partners domestically • Universal accountability standards, primary role of the state & approaches that are adapted to the context

13. Specific to HRBA: reinforces ‘good programming’ Needs assessment identifies root causes for non-realisation of HR (indivisibility & interdependence of CPR-ESCR) Programmes build capacities of rights holders & duty bearers as such Process as important as outcome: empowerment through locally owned development + participation as a HR, both as a means and goal

14. Specific to HRBA: reinforces ‘good programming’ Strengthens empowerment, sustainability & accountability: through access to information, transparency & participation. Obligation to monitor compliance, evaluate both outcomes and processes based on HR standards & principles, with effective mechanisms for redress.

15. Sample initiatives • UN - HURIST; Practitioners’ Forum on Human Rights in Development; UNDP Governance Centre Oslo indicators for HRBA • Bi-Lateral donors: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany….Ireland? • NGOs (CARE Int’l, Oxfam, COHRE….) & research bodies (ODI ‘Rights in Action’) • EC “Mainstreaming” Review 2008

16. Review • of the • White Paper on Irish Aid • ?

17. Ongoing Challenges… • Ideological opposition (ESC rights in Ireland?) + need to mobilise wide public awareness • Inadequate authority & responsibility = fog created around terminology’/concepts • Inadequate human and financial capacity applied (skills, resources, knowledge, time) • Inadequate unity of effort

18. New efforts are needed to overcome polarised debate, to mobilise support from a wide public constituency, and to encourage [Irish aid] to fully integrate all human rights in their work • adapted from Report of the UN Secretary-General on the Right to Development 2011

19. It is the way we do business that has to change. This is not a matter simply of the introduction of new human rights projects or … the infusion of human rights language or the addition of human rights components. • UN Human Rights Strengthening Programme, Review 2001