Documenting and Challenging Human Rights Abuses by Business Actors

The ESCR-Net Corporate Accountability Working Group has been highlighting and publishing cases of human rights abuses involving business actors, through its associated listserv, at public events like the World Social Forum and the Commission on Human Rights, and through its publications. The Working Group has also assisted communities and grassroots groups facing ongoing threats to their human rights, by connecting groups to one another, providing informational and advocacy resources, and facilitating solidarity actions through its listserv.

As part of their ongoing effort to highlight human rights abuses in the cooperate sector, the Corporate Accountability Working Group launched the Business and Human Rights Documentation (B-HRD) Project with the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law on June 28, 2011. This Project systematically documents, monitors and challenges alleged cases of human rights abuses involving corporations across different regions and business sectors. In order to strengthen capacity in monitoring and documentation, the Working Group is also developing a project to facilitate mutual-learning and peer-to-peer training sessions amongst members. Read more: ESCR-Net

Training on “Video for Change”

The training that conducted at 20 – 24 June 2011 was designed as practical guide to setting up and running participatory video projects, opened for anyone who wishes to use video for community works. The training focused on developing participatory video methodologies.  AJAR hope it will further spread awareness of participatory video, clarify how it is done, and encourage others to use it and to develop it further. 

The content of the training presented participatory video as a  set of techniques to involve a group or community in the process of sharing and creating their own film. It can be seen as a very good way of bringing people together to explore a particular issue, to voice concern or to tell a story. This process can be very empowering, enabling a group or community to take action to solve their own problems and also to communicate their needs and ideas to decision makers and/or other groups and communities.”

Training on Monitoring Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

 

This course aims to provide a critical examination of contemporary developments relating to economic, social and cultural rights. The training course was conducted at 23 - 27 June 2011.

The course considered the following questions.  Neglected for many years, are ESC rights emerging from the margins into the mainstream of human rights?  What is the relationship of ESC rights to poverty and development?  What machinery is there at the international and regional levels to ensure that the rights are protected, respected and fulfilled?  How can this machinery be enhanced?  How can judicial, quasi-judicial, administrative and political mechanisms be used at the domestic level for the enjoyment of ESC rights? What is the nature and scope of the rights to health, housing, water, work and cultural rights?

This course provided experienced human rights advocates, staff of NGOs and national human rights institutions, representatives of governments, and staff of UN bodies and other international organizations, as well as members of the academia, with in-depth knowledge on monitoring aspects related to economic, social and cultural rights (ESC rights), and comprehensive knowledge on how to enhance their work on monitoring ESC rights. 

The course program covered the following topics (1) Framework of ESC rights: scope of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, typologies of State obligations; Limburg Principles; Maastricht Guidelines; (2) International mechanisms making use of monitoring tools of ESC rights: UN Human Rights Council, UN Special Rapporteurs, UN Committee on ESC Rights; (3) Approaches to monitoring ESC rights: violations approach, indicators approach, human rights impact assessments, litigating ESC rights, budget monitoring; (4) Strategies to build advocacy policies, data visualization. The methods of training use a dynamic combination of participatory approach and lectures with hands-on practical work on local situations.

Training of Trainers, Human Rights and Transitional Justice

On February 15 – 17 November 2010, AJAR training Center and ICTJ’s (International Center for Transitional Justice) Indonesia and Timor leste offices organized the Training of Trainers (TOT) program. The aim of this training is to help participants in the field explain the ideas and debate the issues around transitional justice in a participatory way. It will also enable participants to develop greater expertise in transitional justice concepts and to assist them in developing high quality training skills. Ultimately, the participants will work to include and implement transitional justice concepts in their own work, and transfer knowledge about transitional justice mechanisms to a larger population.  

Chega Exhibition, Dili

There was a strong emphasis on adult learning techniques and experiential learning approaches throughout. Many of the sessions were activity-based and included role-play, small group discussions, and simulations. In addition to a separate session on gender, there was an attempt to integrate gender as a cross-cutting theme in all the sessions; more than half of the participants were women, including women whose work focuses on gender.