Lobbying

The aim of this assignment it to assist ICCO in the implementation of its "human rights defenders (HRD) guidelines" a policy to support and protect human rights defenders working with local partner organizations. Activities during 2010 include research in Central America and West Africa among partners and other relevant organizations. The research identifies the main problems faced by partner organizations, the strategies they currently use to protect themselves, their needs for further support and protection, and existing regional HRD protection initiatives. Besides reporting on this research, I will use it to design workshops in both Central America and West Africa which aim to improve ICCO's protection of its human rights partner organizations as well as make partners more aware of measures they can take to protect themselves. I also provide ongoing advice to ICCO headquarters staff on action to take to protect their HRD partners in the field.

Previous to this, I assisted in the drafting of ICCO's HRDs guidelines. I also developed and carried out a one-day training session on HRDs for staff at ICCO's headquarters in Utrecht. The training covered the concept of human rights defenders (who they are, what they do, etc.), basic international instruments (UN Declaration on HRDs, UN Fact Sheet 29), violations against HRDs and protection measures that can be taken by international NGOs, the European Union, The Netherlands, and HRDs themselves.

Finally, on the basis of input from human rights defenders and my own knowledge, I drafted recommendations for revising the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders. I presented these recommendations to the French EU Presidency at a consultation it organized with NGOs in November 2008. The revised guidelines are a significant improvement on the previous version partly as a result of this work.

With Iduvina Hernandez (SEDEM Guatemala) and Alejandra Slutzsky, ICCO at the workshop for ICCO partners, 3-4 June, 2010, in Managua, Nicaragua.