Have you ever wondered how to bridge the gap between human rights policy and practice? Or what progress has been made in mainstreaming human rights by international and regional organisations? Have you ever been asked what is a human rights-based approach or how to implement it?

You are not the only one.

Human Rights Advisors (HRA) of multiple EU CSDP missions will, between 27 and 29 March 2023, gather in Pisa, Italy, to find out and discuss the answers to such questions. Our Italian partner, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA), in constant dialogue with HR experts from the CSDP missions and European Commission (the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability), developed a special, face-to-face pilot Training of Trainers for middle/senior mission management on how to mainstream and deliver training on Human Rights (HR) for all mission staff.

The course was primarily developed for staff of EU CSDP missions but, due to its generally applicable nature, can be used for members of other international or regional organisations working on the mandate implementation of their respective mission’s mandates.

Background

Operational Guidelines

The concept for the ToT corresponds to the Civilian Operations Commander Operational Guidelines on Human Rights Mainstreaming and Human Rights Due Diligence, released by the EEAS and CPCC on 13 September 2021. The Operational Guidelines relate HR policy with civilian CSDP mission mandates implementation and represent a key action for strengthening civilian CSDP. Additionally, the Guidelines are directed to all civilian CSDP mission management and staff to foster HR mainstreaming in internal and external activities by adopting the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA).

To ensure that the goal of the Guidelines, namely ensuring that HR are integrated into CSDP missions consistently and coherently and in line with EU core values, is presented and understood, all mission staff should receive proper training.

Human Rights-Based Approach

HRBA, according to the UN’s universal values, is a conceptual framework for human development based on international HR standards and seeks to promote and protect HR by analysing social inequalities and fighting against unjust distribution of power, marginalisation of vulnerable groups of people and other discriminatory practices. In short, HRBA is a methodological and applicative tool to link HR principles, values and standards with their implementation.

Course Structure

The course will illustrate the key elements of an HRBA and provide instruments and methodologies on how to use this approach as a programming tool for mainstreaming HR into the internal and external activities of civilian crisis management missions. The training’s overall goal is to foster an understanding of the value of human rights, which will contribute to more resilient, inclusive, and democratic societies.

The course will consist of four main modules:

1. Human Rights and HRBA
2. What is HRBA?
3. Applying HRBA to Programming with practical exercices (“Power Walk” exercise, creating a HR Roadmap and Results Framework etc.) and HR analysis
4. HRBA in practice or How to integrate HRBA into a specific project within the organisation

… and will enable the HRAs to

• Explain what HR mainstreaming and the Human Rights-Based Approach are,
• Compare the different tools and resources used to implement HRBA,
• Explain the main tenets of the Operational Guidelines,
• Apply the key elements of HRBA to strengthen work under all phases of the mission cycle (from analysis to review)
• Develop HRBA training programmes using an optimum blend of techniques and resources to deliver effective training programmes and evaluate their effectiveness.