Tactics and tools for the protection
of Human Rights Defenders

Protection International Research and training unit

Research and text by Enrique Eguren Fernández and María Martín Quintana

Protection of human rights defenders: Best practices and lessons learnt
Volume I: Operational aspects of defenders’ protection

Protection International, 2010, 138 pages

This broad study of the protection of Human Rights Defenders is presented in two volumes under the general title “Protection of Human Rights Defenders: Best Practices and Lessons Learnt”. Volume I, subtitled “Legislation, national policies and defenders’ units ”, examined the normative and structural aspects of these protection initiatives. This second volume, “Protection Programmes for Defenders”, analyses the practical aspects of protection programmes: the measures they include, how they are structured, and their results. The book focuses on the the three countries whose protection programmes were examined, namely Brazil, Guatemala and Colombia. 

As was seen in Volume I, Defenders’ Units (whether governmental or non-governmental) work in different ways to provide protection for Defenders, employing different perspectives and objectives and with different budgetary availability; the units operate, also, in very varied organisational frameworks or coordinations. However, they all have in common that their work is carried out under the aegis of article 18 of the UN Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which indicates that:
 
1. Everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels. 
2. Individuals, groups, institutions and non-governmental organizations have an important role to play and a responsibility in safeguarding democracy, promoting human rights and fundamental freedoms and contributing to the promotion and advancement of democratic societies, institutions and processes. 
3. [By analogy] Individuals, groups, institutions and non-governmental organizations also have an important role and a responsibility in contributing, as appropriate, to the promotion of the right of everyone to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights instruments can be fully realized. 

Although the Defenders’ Units are all different, this second volume uses a focus that maintains a broad overview that may be applied to any of the varieties of Unit that exist, organising the analysis around their principal objective, that of providing protection. Having examined the work of the different Units we believe that this mixed approach makes it easier to focus on the question of protection. We also highlight, whenever necessary, the differences that may be observed between them. In order to simplify the text we refer always to “protection programmes” or simply “programmes”. More detail is available in the annexes where the relevant texts are reproduced. 

Contents

Introduction -page III

Chapter 1: Overview of the Protection Response -page 1

Chapter 2: Inclusion in Protection Programmes -page 11

Chapter 3: Risk Analysis in Programmes for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders -page 25

Chapter 4: Protection Measures provided by the Programmes: Characteristics and Duration -page 35

Chapter 5: Catalogue of Available Protection Measures and Analysis -page 43

Chapter 6: The Overall Protection Response -page 55

Annex 1: Assesing risk: threats, vulnerabilities and capacities -page 60

Annex 2 : Brazil: Procedural Manual for Programmes for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (extract) -page 68

Annex 3: Colombia: Decree 1740 (2010) governing the Programme for the Protection of Defenders -page 82

Annex 4: Guatemala: Catalogue of measures for the prevention of human rights abuses and protection of human rights defenders and other particularly vulnerable groups (Guatemala, February 2008) -page 100

Acknowledgements -page 119