Human rights are a core pillar of the United Nations. All staff members in peace operations have the responsibility to ensure the protection and promotion of human rights through their work.
Most multi-dimensional peace operations have a human rights team including: MONUSCO (DR Congo), MINUSCA(Central African Republic), MINUSMA (Mali), UNAMID (Darfur), UNMISS (South Sudan), UNMIL (Liberia), MINUSTAH (Haiti), UNAMI (Iraq), UNSMIL (Libya), UNMIK (Kosovo), UNIOGBIS (Guinea Bissau), UNSOM (Somalia) and UNAMA (Afghanistan).
Our goals
Human rights components in peace operations implement the human rights-related mandates given to missions and they help to mainstream human rights across all mission activities. The goals of human rights teams are:
- to contribute to the protection and promotion of human rights through both immediate and long-term action;
- to empower the population to assert and claim their human rights;
- to enable State and other national institutions to implement their human rights obligations and uphold the rule of law.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) provides expertise, guidance and support to these human rights teams. The head of the human rights team is the most senior human rights advisor to the Head of Mission and is also the representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in-country.
Our work
Core activities undertaken by the human rights section typically include:
- Conducting human rights monitoring, investigations and analysis;
- Issue public reports on human rights issues of special concern;
- Preventing human rights violations, including through mission-wide early warning mechanisms;
- Responding to violations of human rights by providing human rights advice, supporting institutional reform and building capacity, supporting the creation and strengthening of accountability mechanisms, and working closely with host governments, national institutions and civil society;
- Advising and assisting other mission teams in integrating human rights in their mandated tasks.
Human rights teams work in close cooperation and coordination with other civilian and uniformed components of peace operations. In particular, in relation to:
- the protection of civilians;
- addressing conflict-related sexual violence and violations against children;
- supporting transitional justice and accountability mechanisms;
- strengthening respect for human rights and the rule of law through legal and judicial reform, security sector reform and prison system reform.
Achievements
Examples of our work include:
Afghanistan
Persistent advocacy and sustained dialogue by OHCHR/UNAMA resulted in the adoption of civilian casualty prevention and mitigation measures including development of the National Policy on Civilian Casualty Prevention and Mitigation by the Government of Afghanistan in 2016. OHCHR/UNAMA advocacy and technical support also led to the establishment of a dedicated entity within Office of the National Security Council to document conflict related civilian casualties. It also supported the Government in the implementation of protection of civilians strategies and policies and in preventing conflict-related harm to civilian property, schools and hospitals.
Central African Republic
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Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Guinea-Bissau
UNIOGBIS' Human Rights Section has supported efforts to enable authorities sustained engagement with international human rights bodies and mechanisms, including by facilitating their participation in a regular session of the Human Rights Council, and by supporting technically and financially the undertaking of the first ever stocktaking exercise on the status of the implementation of recommendations made to Guinea-Bissau by international human rights mechanisms in the first semester of 2017.
Haiti
Over thirteen years, the human rights component of MINUSTAH has supported Haitian actors concerning the protection and promotion of human rights in the country. With the support of the component, police and justice oversight bodies as well as the national human rights institution have built an increased capacity to investigate allegations of human rights violations. The Government’s capacity to respond to international human rights mechanisms such as Universal Periodic Review has also been strengthened. Civil society organizations have been assisted to act as guardians of the respect of human rights and the Haitian constitution.
Kosovo
The Human Rights Section (HRO) of UNMIK has closely worked with different actors and local authorities in Pristina and Belgrade to clarify the fate of 1658 persons still missing in relation to the conflict in Kosovo in 98-2000. In March 2017, the Human Rights Section supported the establishment of the first multi-ethnic Resource Centre on Missing Persons and in June 2017 it organized, in cooperation with the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, a Roundtable on Missing Persons in Geneva. The Human Rights Section also organized in June 2017 a two-day workshop to equip local stakeholders with skills to monitor and address cases involving violations of human rights in relation to counter-terrorism and measures for prevention of violent extremism in Kosovo.
Libya
Working with Libya’s Constitution Drafting Assembly and stakeholder such as judges and human rights defenders, the Human Rights, Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Division of UNSMIL was able to successfully strengthen human rights guarantees in the draft Libyan Constitution, including improvements in areas of discrimination against women, the prohibition on torture, freedom of association and freedom from servitude, slavery and human trafficking.