Towards Effective Training For Field Human Rights Tasks

This publication presents a review of the training provided in major human rights operations in the 1990s (Haiti, Cambodia, Rwanda, El Salvador, former Yugoslavia, etc). It makes concrete recommendations regarding who should be trained - including management and local staff - in what, when, and by whom. It also highlights the need for distillation of better field practice, systematically fed into organisational learning and ultimately future training.

Author's Summary:

Since the early 1990s, the deployment of Human Rights Operations is increasingly seen as part of the international response to complex emergencies. However, it has become more and more apparent that shortcomings in the present situation regarding selection and training of staff have negative consequences for the impact of their work. This paper considers weaknesses which have been identified, ranging from inappropriate use of the term "training" to poorly targetted and/or late instruction, particularly in the context of urgent deployment. In addition, there is no central, responsible body at the UN which can, or does, provide all the requisite functions for recruiting, training, deploying or de-briefing human rights officers in a timely manner. This lack of centralised responsibility for human rights operations has negative consequences for institutional memory and learning from experience.

One approach, currently under discussion in a number of states, is to speed up emergency deployment of human rights officers through the creation of standby rosters. The paper considers some strengths and limitations of these proposals and notes that unless present shortcomings in content and delivery of training are addressed, such rosters cannot achieve their full potential.

Addressing these questions, the present paper advocates an on-going process to codify best field practices based on an understanding of the primary aim of human rights field operations: to facilitate sustainable improvement in the human rights situation of the host country. Such codified best practices would facilitate trainers by providing the content of appropriate training, to be carried out in advance (generic mission-preparedness), on arrival in the mission area as well as on-going during the life of the mission. In this context, the HRTP... uses the term "training" to mean the on-going process which adapts the previously acquired skills and experience of appropriately recruited personnel to an identified Human Rights Operation’s task, and which effectively communicates to them instructions and material facts needed to successfully fulfill that task in the country-specific context.

The paper concludes that in the immediate term, the priority is not the delivery of training but rather the identification of best field practices through learning lessons from the experience of human rights operations to date. This would provide the essential tool of clear selection criteria and procedure - as well as training content and methodology. While the paper concentrates on the needs of specialist staff of human rights operations, the codification process proposed, as well as its results, would also apply to other personnel with human rights field tasks - thus facilitating the mainstreaming of human rights training among the range of international field personnel.

It is recommended that the codification process be initiated in a forum of specialists. The forum would be independent and include the input of the widest possible range of relevant actors and disciplines.