Human Rights Monitoring

The international human rights framework

Determining the legal framework of human rights monitoring will help define its structure, the types and sources of information to be gathered and the elements to be proven to establish that violations have taken place. Discover the international legal framework that underpins human rights. The principles that guide their application, the nature of rights, who is responsible for upholding human rights, and what mechanisms perform human rights monitoring functions globally.

Estimated time: 1h 06m

• Trainers' Note

  Welcome to Human Rights Monitoring course!

  We are excited to have you in the class and look forward to your contributions to the learning community.

  First of all, we recommend taking a few minutes to explore the content of the course. Review all the materials we will be covering in 8 Modules, and preview the quizzes and assignments you’ll need to complete to pass the course.

  Login to the Forum where you can discuss the course materials with fellow learners taking this course. And of course, don’t forget to explore FreedomLab site, its tool library and other online trainings!

  If you have questions about course content, please post them in the forums to get help from others in the course community.

  Good luck as you get started, and we hope you enjoy the course!

  David Mark & Yelena Volochai

• Video lecture

  Introduction: International Human Rights Framework

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

• 4 Readings

  We encourage you to examine the following materials:

  • The Core International Human Rights Instruments and their monitoring bodies
  • National Prevention mechanisms
  • Thematic mandates of Special Rapporteurs 
  • Universal Periodic Review process
• 1 Quiz

  Take the quiz and test your knowledge after completing the first module of the training!

  1. The principles of universality of human rights means:

  A. All humans are endowed with human rights, there are no preconditions.

  B. All humans are endowed with human rights if they fulfill their citizen responsibilities.

  C. All human are endowed with human rights as long as they respect human rights.

  Correct! Wrong!

  2. A human rights convention/covenant is legally binding (legally binding means parties must obey the terms written in the convention/ covenant) if:

  A. A State party has signed said convention

  B. A State party has adopted said convention

  C. A state party has ratified said convention

  Correct! Wrong!

  3. The International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights is more important than the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural rights.

  A. True

  B. False

  Correct! Wrong!

  4. Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a legally binding document.

  A. True

  B. True only for those countries who signed and ratified it.

  C. False

  Correct! Wrong!

  5. The obligation of the State to respect human rights means:

  A. The State has to make sure people’s rights are realized free from interference by other actors,

  B. The State must put in place the institutions and resources necessary for rights to be realized.

  C. The State must refrain from taking any action that interferes with the exercise of rights.

  Correct! Wrong!

  6. Each human rights convention establishes a committee of experts to monitor implementation of the treaty provisions

  A. True

  B. False

  Correct! Wrong!

  7. The right to hold opinions without interference and the right to freedom of expression are:

  A. Limited rights

  B. Absolute rights

  Correct! Wrong!

Human rights monitoring definition and principles

While investigating human rights violations, you should keep in mind and respect several basic principles that are essential for effective human rights monitoring. These principles ensure that your work is accurate, impartial and that your actions do not cause harm. Learn how to apply them in this module.

Estimated time: 1h 20m

• Video lecture

  Human Rights Monitoring Principles

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

• 2 Readings

  We encourage you to read the following materials:

  • Infographic – Human Rights Monitoring: Steps for success
  • 6.4 The Indicators-Based Monitoring Methodology of the manual “What is Monitoring” by Manuel Guzman, Bert Verstappen
• 2 Practice exercises

  Exercise 1:

  Look through the key principles of monitoring listed below once again. Try to formulate how you understand each of those principles. Record your thoughts in any way – on a voice recorder, make a short summary or a video. And after that, please open the handout and compare your ideas to those that are presented in our material. How do they differ?

  Key Principles of Monitoring:

  • Know the standards
  • Emphasize State responsibility
  • Do not cause harm to your sources and yourself
  • Seek informed consent
  • Maintain confidentiality and privacy of an interview
  • Be precise and thorough
  • Maintain credibility and reliability
  • Be consistent
  • Maintain Integrity and professionalism
  • Be transparent
  • Pay attention to sensitivity (respect to diversity, gender perspective)
  • Be impartial and objective

  ---

  Exercise 2:

  Taking into consideration the following chart, please reflect on a specific right you want to protect and answer the following questions before starting your human rights investigation:

  

  To help you navigate through this process, please find below an example:

  1. What right will we study?

  The right of detained women to non-discrimination based on gender.

  2. What standards regulate the obligations of the State to realize the right to non-discrimination of women?

  • Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
  • Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners
  • Paragraph 15 of the General comment No. 28 (2000) on the equality of rights between men and women
  • Concluding observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on the sixth periodic report of Yemen (CEDAW/C/YEM/CO/6).
  • Paragraph 44 of the Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences (E/CN.4/2000/68/Add.3)
  • National Law

   

  3. What change should be achieved as a result of our monitoring?

  • The State ensures the practical implementation of this standard in all temporary detention facilities (city, town, district, country)
  • Women’s detention facilities are run by responsible female officers, male staff are allowed into the women’s detention facility only when accompanied by female staff, and women in detention should be cared for and supervised only by female staff.

• 1 Quiz

  1. What does human rights-based monitoring investigate?

  A. Human rights-based monitoring examines the opinion of as many people as possible.

  B. Human rights-based monitoring investigates facts for a future systemic change.

  C. Human rights-based monitoring is the study of the surrounding world for scientific purposes.

  Correct! Wrong!

  2. What is the purpose of monitoring?

  A. To change the behavior of decisions-makers

  B. To make an organisation look respectable and trustworthy

  C. To punish all violators

  Correct! Wrong!

  3. What monitoring principle is described in a short definition? «The principles of monitoring require that you investigate the conflict comprehensively and communicate with all parties that may have violated human rights».

  Please select 2 correct answers

  A. Credibility and reliability

  B. Impartiality and Objectivity

  C. Confidentiality and privacy

  Correct! Wrong!

  4. Monitoring compliance with human rights standards is…

  A. An action aimed at investigating human rights violations

  B. A set of planned measures to raise awareness of the systematic human rights violations

  C. Planned and implemented measures to achieve systemic change

  Correct! Wrong!

  5. The promptness and effectiveness of police brutality investigations is … (type of indicator)

  А. Outcome indicator

  B. Benchmark

  C. Structural indicator

  D. Process indicator

  Correct! Wrong!

• 4 Additional Materials

  Materials mentioned in the video:

  • Aarhus Convention
  • European Convention on Human Rights
  • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
  • Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

Human rights monitoring cycle

Human rights monitoring activities should follow a structure, also known as human rights monitoring cycle, that allows you to make the most of your resources, keep you and your team focused, and allows you to stay safe and consider all the angles.

Human Rights Monitoring cycle constitutes a strategic tool to record and analyse information, present findings of monitoring activities, express concern about a human rights issue, engage in dialogue with duty bearers, advocate positive change and propose recommendations for corrective action.

Learn more about the monitoring cycle in this module!

Estimated time: 1h 30m

• Video lectures

  Human Rights Monitoring Cycle

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

  Integrating gender into human rights monitoring work

• 1 Quiz

  Take the quiz and test your knowledge!

  1. Before starting a monitoring exercise …

  A. We won’t need any particular knowledge – we’ll explore everything during human rights monitoring

  B. We need to know absolutely everything to confirm or discard a hypothesis

  C. We need to conduct a preliminary assessment of the problem

  Correct! Wrong!

  2. Gender mainstreaming during monitoring is –

  A. The advocacy of women’s rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes

  B. Connected to taking into consideration the rights and freedoms that are protected in accordance with the principles of equality and non-discrimination

  C. Connected to the fact that the monitoring groups must be of the same sex

  Correct! Wrong!

  3. Safety and security during monitoring exercise should be ensured to…

  A. Avoid environments, equipments and practices which may expose people to potential hazards to their body.

  B. Guarantee physical and psychological well-being of people and safety of information carriers

  C. Protect people as well as their digital devices during human rights work

  Correct! Wrong!

  4. One of the main tasks of monitoring is to

  A. collect as much information as possible

  B. collect and verify information

  C. collect information in accordance with research objectives from diverse sources

  D. collect information from various sources

  E. collect, verify and analyse information

  Correct! Wrong!

  5. Monitoring cycle ends with …

  A. Report writing

  B. Advocacy planning

  C. It never ends

  Correct! Wrong!

• 1 Practice exercise

  Exercise

  1. Examine OSCE Rapporteur’s Report under the Moscow Mechanism on Alleged Human Rights Violations related to the Presidential Elections of 9 August 2020 in Belarus.
  2. Identify a specific human right that is relevant for your monitoring or to the activities of your organization.
  3. Sketch out an initial assessment of the situation for your possible future monitoring.
  4. Analyse whether these alleged human rights violations are affecting all stakeholders in the same way or not.
  5. Describe the human rights problem you want to resolve, and applicable human rights standards

• Additional Materials

  Monitoring Cycle

  Examine once again the Human Rights Monitoring Cycle.

  

   

Developing the monitoring strategy

The nature of human rights monitoring will vary depending on your priorities, strategic goals and even the mandate of your organisation. All this will determine the methods of monitoring you will be using given your capacities and resources. This module will focus specifically on formulating a human right problem, setting strategic goals and monitoring objectives to ensure the development of an effective monitoring strategy.

Estimated time: 45m

• Video lecture

  Developing the monitoring strategy

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

• 1 Quiz

  Take the quiz and test your knowledge!

  1. How should we define the monitoring goal?

  A. It is necessary to define the monitoring goal as broad as possible

  B. It is necessary to define the monitoring goal as focused as possible

  C. It is necessary to examine and study as many materials as possible without setting a goal

  Correct! Wrong!

  2. How do the goal and objectives of monitoring relate?

  A. The goal should be narrower than objectives.

  B. The goal and objectives are not linked.

  C. The goal should be broader than objectives.

  Correct! Wrong!

  What version (A or B) of the problem definition is correct?

  A. Ensuring protection against violence and attacks of journalists and media representatives in the region ____ of the country ____

  B. Lack of protection against violence and attacks of journalists and media representatives in the region ____ of the country ____

  Correct! Wrong!

  4. How should we describe the problem we monitor?

  A. It is necessary to describe all the possible problems that we find during our monitoring exercise.

  B. It is necessary to describe a root cause of the problem.

  C. It is necessary to describe all the problems and all the root causes of the problems during monitoring exercise.

  Correct! Wrong!

  5. The following goal and objectives are formulated correctly: Goal: To promote government ratification of international treaties related to the right to a fair trial Objective 1: To study international human rights law that enshrines fair trial rights Objective 2:To study national legislation pertaining to the right to a fair trial

  A. True

  B. False

  Correct! Wrong!

  6. The recommendations in the monitoring report are mainly aimed at …

  A. Monitoring group members

  B. The whole society in general

  C. Representatives of the affected groups/ groups which rights were violated

  D. Partners of our organization

  E. Media and social networks

  F. State representatives

  Correct! Wrong!

• 1 Practice exercise

  Study this document on Developing a Human Rights Monitoring Strategy and start planning your own monitoring strategy on its basis.

  Good luck!

Information gathering

Information gathering is the staple of monitoring. Without reliable information you cannot get to the facts. Learn how you find information, what types information you need, and to what end.

After learning about information gathering in this module you will be able to test your knowledge in practice by playing an online educational game, just click Starlight Stadium.

Enjoy!

Estimated time: 1h45m

• Video lecture

  Information gathering

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

• 1 Quiz

  Take the quiz and test your knowledge!

  1. Primary sources of information in human rights monitoring are:

  A. Media reports and reportages

  B. Social media posts by people making allegations

  C. Documents, official statistics medical letters, financial documents, eyewitness/victim social media posts

  Correct! Wrong!

  2. If I asked for official information and did not get any answer from State actors:

  A. It means I have no information that I can use in my human rights investigation,

  B. It means that State actors (police, local authority, ministry, etc.) have certainly committed a human rights violation,

  C. It means I have the information that a particular State actor (police, local authority, ministry, etc.) is unwilling to provide details about the case I investigate

  Correct! Wrong!

• Game

  Starlight Stadium is an online learning game that will send you on a virtual human rights monitoring mission in a fictional country, where you will gradually learn and apply the core skills needed to investigate human rights violations i.e. monitoring, digital security, data collection, interviewing and much more.

  A colleague in crisis asks you to continue an investigation he started which quickly unfolds into systemic human rights violations with links to your country’s top leadership. Set in a fictional country ahead of a global sports event, the government fails to protect laborers who have been compelled to work in untenable conditions by the company constructing stadiums. Players must find witnesses and victims, interview them and systematically document the abuses without putting themselves or their collaborators at risk. They must choose carefully the right thing to say, record, and report as well as how to communicate securely. Just as in real life human rights work, each choice has potentially dire consequences and you don’t know who to trust.

  Click here to start Starlight Stadium Game.

  Your opinion is important to us, therefore, don’t forget to fill in the survey after playing the game.

Verification & analysis

You gathered terabytes of information. Is it all accurate? Is it useful at all? Learn how to sift through, triangulate and verify information so that you take the most reliable facts to light.

Examine how to evaluate carefully all information for its relevance, accuracy, validity, completeness and meaning, to ensure the quality of any subsequent analysis.

Estimated time: 45m

• Video lecture

  Verification & analysis

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

• 1 Reading

  We encourage you to read the document “Reliability of sources and validity of information” of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Manual on Human Rights Monitoring.

• 1 Quiz

  Take the quiz and test your knowledge!

  1. Triangulating sources of information means:

  A. Information gathered from 3 geographical locations

  B. The same piece of information was gathered from at least 3 sources

  C. Three pieces of different but related information was gathered from at least 3 sources.

  Correct! Wrong!

  The information I gathered from victims is always reliable and thus I don’t need to further verify it.

  A. True

  B. False

  Correct! Wrong!

  3. Seeking patterns during an analysis means that:

  A. I will look at all the violations related to one single right over a longer period of time (i.e. freedom of assembly)

  B. I will look at interlinkages between violations of several connected rights over a period of time.

  C. I will look at failures to respect human rights by State actors over a period of time.

  Correct! Wrong!

Report Writing

Reporting is an essential element of the human rights monitoring cycle. Although reports can take many forms and follow different approaches, there are several basic principles that you should apply while writing a report to make it more structured, clear and concise.

Report writing is not an art, that is an important thing you must know. Learn about the do’s and don’t s of report writing. Keep it crisp, factual and well-structured to maximize impact.

Estimated time: 40m

• Video lecture

  Report writing

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

• 1 Quiz

  Take the quiz and test your knowledge!

  1. Writing the final report is the final stage of a human rights monitoring exercise:

  A. True

  B. False

  Correct! Wrong!

  The first part in a good report consists of:

  A. The compilation of gathered and analyzed facts,

  B. The methodology

  C. Executive Summary

  Correct! Wrong!

  3. A good set of recommendations is:

  A. Rather general looking at the big picture and should be well arguments and convincing,

  B. They should focus on the change that we want to achieve as human rights defenders

  C. They should be rather focused on details and more concise, they should enable the interlocutor to take action,

  Correct! Wrong!

  4. A well written report should be connecting with the reader at an emotional level, it should use language that emphasizes the suffering of victims.

  A. True

  B. False

  Correct! Wrong!

Advocacy & Follow up

It must be stressed that an important part of the human right monitoring work is advocacy and facilitation of cooperation with various stakeholders to ensure greater opportunities for designing interventions and strategies for corrective action. In the last module of the Human Rights Monitoring training, you will learn valuable tips and recommendations which will help you while interacting with various stakeholders from NGOs and Intergovernmental organisations to media representatives and national, regional and local authorities.

Estimated time: 35m

• Video lecture

  Advocacy & Follow up

  Please, make sure you turned on Subtitles option on YouTube.

• 1 Quiz

  Take the quiz and test your knowledge!

  1. If during an investigation I am faced with a serious human rights violation that is happening in real time, I should:

  A. Take immediate action and inform authorities and possibly international organization

  B. Remain objective and neutral, gather the information about the case but not intervene

  C. Intervene myself to remedy the situation with all the resources I have at my disposal

  Correct! Wrong!

  2. The education and training of members of State bodies is not the job of a human rights defenders, we should not engage in such activities:

  A. True

  B. False

  Correct! Wrong!

  3. A human rights advocacy strategy should include:

  A. Only strong messages against the state authorities focused on naming and shaming,

  B. Both more adversarial tactics such as strong worded petitions, demonstrations, disrupting actions as well as tactics focused on open dialogue, co-operation, and partnership.

  C. It should be rather focused on dialogue and partnership with the government seeking a long-term resolution of human rights issues

  Correct! Wrong!

  4. The targets of my advocacy should be:

  A. Only the institutions and bodies that have decision making power such as authorities

  B. The institutions and bodies that have decision making power such as authorities as well as the media and journalists

  C. A variety of actors including media, journalists, other NGOs, international organizations and state authorities

  Correct! Wrong!

  5. During a meeting with authorities, the most important objective is to:

  A. Present all the facts and figures I have gathered during the human rights investigation,

  B. Convince the interlocutor that the cause you represent is important, reach out emotionally to them,

  C. Confront the representatives and make them be ashamed for the suffering they are causing,

  D. Focus on the key asks and recommendations, push for action to be take by the authorities, support your points with evidence.

  Correct! Wrong!

• Trainers' Note

  Congratulations!

  You successfully completed Human Right Monitoring training!

  Don’t forget to fill in the feedback survey and provide your comments and suggestions on how we can make this training more useful and relevant for human rights defenders.

  Don’t forget to check out our training on Safety and Security.

  If you wish to obtain OSCE Course Certificate, please contact us and we will send you the link to the final assessment survey. After successfully completing this assessment, you will receive your Course Certificate in electronic format.

  We wish you the best of luck in your future human rights monitoring activities!

  David Mark & Yelena Volochai