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Training course on the Treaty Bodies and the Universal Periodic Review |
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‘It has been an eye opening course which elicited in me great change, a transformation that will without doubt shape my career forever as a human rights defender. My attending to the Geneva training course on treaty monitoring bodies and UPR thanks to the support of ISHR will remain fresh forever in my mind. I would like to pay tribute to ISHR for the outstanding job you are doing to build up human rights defenders’ capacities to serve the whole purpose of humanity. By your work, your are fostering the conviction of human rights defenders that they are pursuing a noble cause’. ‘The workshop was really a teachable moment for me and I came out a better human rights activist ready to engage UN human rights mechanisms. Now I am in the process of exploring opportunities for implementing the Action Project.’
Such are the comments from the human rights defenders who participated in the ISHR training course on the treaty monitoring bodies and the universal periodic review. The course took place from 3 to 14 May. It gave participants the opportunity to observe the 44th sessions of the Committee against Torture (CAT) and of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the 8th session of the UPR and to meet committee members face-to-face.
The course focused on both theoretical and practical aspects of international human rights law, the procedures and practices of the UN human rights mechanisms and the role of NGOs. The main objective of the course is to give human rights defenders the tools to practically engage with the UN system and to demystify the UN system in order to improve the implementation of human rights treaties and standards.
ISHR invited OHCHR staff, committee members, government delegates and other NGO representatives to share their thoughts and advice on how NGOs can engage with the UN system. We also invited six former participants back to share how they had engaged with the treaty bodies and the UPR since completing a ISHR training course. The six returning trainees spent three intense days following a practical train-the-trainer course and then designed and delivered presentations and practical workshops on how to successfully use the UN mechanisms at national level.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 August 2010 18:04 |
