Tactics and tools for the protection
of Human Rights Defenders

The roles of human rights field officers (HROs) may vary considerably depending on the mandate of their organisation and specific mission. Many missions involve the provision of “technical assistance” and/or “capacity-building”—roles that imply assistance to governments, human rights commissions and sometimes national human rights NGOs in the development and application of human rights law and support to structures. Others include the general monitoring and reporting of human rights conditions, in some cases extending to the investigation of human rights violations alongside government counterparts or as an independent body.

In addition, a number of HROs have been deployed to provide advice to peacekeeping operations and/or UN Country Teams (UNCTs) on mainstreaming human rights into their activities and ensuring respect for human rights by peacekeepers and other personnel. Future OHCHR missions may also include the requirement to “promote and protect” human rights—a role with a significant but ambiguous meaning; one interpreted in different ways by different actors.

Although this paper explores the implications of new protection roles of OHCHR human rights officers in some depth, human rights officers and others serving in different types of monitoring missions may find some of the examples and recommendations useful. Reforms in the UN such as the creation of the Human Rights Council, the development of the new “cluster approach” to the protection of IDPs in the field and the fairly radical changes proposed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights for her organisation bring some hope of better protection, but the more cynical observer may question whether these efforts will be used as yet another smokescreen for inaction by governments unprepared to take decisive political and/or military action to prevent widespread violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. The presence of unarmed monitors, humanitarian aid workers and under-equipped peacekeepers is no match for forces bent on driving civilians from their land, raping women with impunity, oppressing all dissent and, as we have seen in Rwanda, Bosnia and now Darfur, those determined to destroy a group, in whole or in part—those intent upon committing genocide. Human rights officers and humanitarians have saved many lives in the face of armed conflict and even genocide—and will continue, due to their dedication and courage, to save more. But they are not capable of preventing large-scale atrocities—they can only hope to mitigate and prevent some abuses. The organizations that send them to the front lines should be cognizant of the need to protect their staff and to document and to publicize the effects upon civilians of the failure of governments and intergovernmental bodies such as the UN Security Council to stop those perpetrators emboldened by delays of the great world powers due to self-interest and cowardice.