Tag: Human rights

Human Rights and Impact Assessment

Special Issue of Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, Volume 31, Issue 2, 2013

  • Boele, Richard, and Christine Crispin. 2013. “What Direction for Human Rights Impact Assessments?” Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2): 128–134. doi:10.1080/14615517.2013.771005.
  • Collins, Nina, and Alan Woodley. 2013. “Social Water Assessment Protocol: a Step Towards Connecting Mining, Water and Human Rights.” Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2): 158–167. doi:10.1080/14615517.2013.774717.
  • Hanna, Philippe, and Frank Vanclay. 2013. “Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples and the Concept of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.” Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2): 146–157. doi:10.1080/14615517.2013.780373.
  • ———. 2013b. “Human Rights and Impact Assessment.” Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2): 85–85. doi:10.1080/14615517.2013.791507.
  • Sauer, Arn Thorben, and Aranka Podhora. 2013. “Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Human Rights Impact Assessment.” Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2): 135–145. doi:10.1080/14615517.2013.791416.
  • Watson, Gabrielle, Irit Tamir, and Brianna Kemp. 2013. “Human Rights Impact Assessment in Practice: Oxfam’s Application of a Community-based Approach.” Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 31 (2): 118–127. doi:10.1080/14615517.2013.771007.

See also Gabrielle Watson’s related blog posting: Trust but verify: Companies assessing their own impacts on human rights? Oxfam’s experience supporting communities to conduct human rights impact assessments

And docs mentioned in her post:

  • the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in 2011
  • Oxfam’s community-based Human Rights Impact Assessment (HRIA) tool, Getting it Right,The tool was first tested in the Philippines, Tibet, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Argentina and Peru, and then improved. In 2010 and 2011, Oxfam supported local partner organizations to conduct community-based HRIAs with tobacco farmworkers in North Carolina and with mining-affected communities in Bolivia. In our experience, community-based HRIAs have: (1) built human rights awareness among community members, (2) helped initiate constructive engagement when companies have previously ignored community concerns, and (3) led to concrete actions by companies to address concerns.

Assessing the impact of human rights work: Challenges and Choices

The International Council on Human Rights Policy has produced two documents under the above named project(See here for details of the project):

  • No Perfect Measure: Rethinking Evaluationand Assessment of Human Rights Work. Report of a Workshop, January 2012. Contents: Introduction and Context,,A Brief History,,NGO Hesitations, The Shift, Assessing the Impact of Policy Research, Impact Assessment in the context of Advocacy, Impact Assessment in the context of Capacity Building and Development, The Donor perspective, Third-Party Perspectives—Building a bridge, A note on integrating Human Rights Principles into development work, References, Selected Additional Bibliographic Resources
  • Role and Relevance of Human Rights Principles in Impact Assessment: An Approach Paper. July 2011. Contents: Introduction and Context, A Brief History, NGO Hesitations, The Shift, Assessing the Impact of Policy Research, Impact Assessment in the context of Advocacy
    Impact Assessment in the context of Capacity Building and Development
    The Donor perspective, Third-Party Perspectives—Building a bridge
    A note on integrating Human Rights Principles into development work
    References, Selected Additional Bibliographic Resources

PS 14 February 2012: It appears the ICHRP website is not working at present. I have uploaded a copy of the No Perfect Measure paper here

Indices, Benchmarks, and Indicators: Planning and Evaluating Human Rights Dialogues

Anna Würth, Frauke Lisa Seidensticker, German Institute for Human Rights, 2005. Available as pdf

“In September 2001, the Swiss Government accepted a postulate by the Commission for Foreign Policy of the Federal Parliament. The postulate asked the government to develop the instrument of human rights dialogues within the human rights foreign policy. In 2004, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) issued an internal briefing paper for this policy. To further develop the instrument, the Human Rights Policy Section of the DFA asked the German Institute for Human Rights in early 2005 to elaborate a study on this comparably recent instrument of foreign policy with special attention to measurement of impact.

A commitment to the universal validity of human rights does not lead to a predetermined, uniform pattern of bilateral human rights policy towards all countries. A different approach is possible and necessary: Depending on the context of the respective country, the implementation of human rights concerns requires a set of instruments that follows different goals and strategies and sets different thematic priorities. In my opinion, this applies for human rights dialogues as well.

The present study elaborates the instrument of the institutionalized or formalized human rights dialogue. It focuses on the measurement of impact of human rights dialogues, an area that has not yet received sufficient attention. For states conducting human rights dialogues the study contains valuable recommendations for the planning, design, implementation and evaluation of future dialogues”

Contents
1  Impact of Human Rights Norms  . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Planning Human Rights Dialogues  . . . . . . . . 16
3 Measuring Impact: Forms and Methods  . . . . 21
4 The Practice of Impact Assessment  . . . . . . . . 27
5 Recommendations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

The Child Rights in Practice: Measuring our Impact conference

Date: Date: October 25th – 30th 2009
Venue: Whistler British Columbia.

We are pleased to announce the new dates for Child Rights in Practice Conference: Measuring our Impact. The conference will be held from October 25th – 30th in beautiful Whistler, British Columbia.

This conference promises to be an exciting, interactive journey to discover how we can be more accountable to children. It will explore the current methods of monitoring and evaluation and also introduce new ways to incorporate this practice into our daily work. Continue reading “The Child Rights in Practice: Measuring our Impact conference”

Potential Human Rights Uses of Network Analysis and Mapping

>A report< to the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Skye Bender-deMoll April 28, 2008. 47 pages

Abstract: This report investigates potential new tools and existing applications of network analysis and network mapping to assist or facilitate human rights work. It provides a very brief overview of some network concepts, quick introductions to a number of relevant fields of research, and some specific examples of how people are currently using network tools for academic and applied work. The examples serve as an overview and entry point to the research areas. As this is a developing and fragmented field, classification is difficult. However, some common points exist and a few conclusions are presented. Some of the risks and challenges of network research are discussed, along with criteria for evaluating potential future projects. Finally, several possible projects are proposed.

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