OHCHR and prevention

Issues in focus

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OHCHR and prevention

Issues in focus

From Syria to Sri Lanka and from Myanmar to the Central African Republic, major human rights crises have repeatedly been preceded by warnings from the Office, Special Procedures -- and indeed the Treaty Bodies – indicating an alarming rise in human rights violations and abuses.

Michelle Bachelet, High Commissioner for Human Rights, 24 February 2020

Effective prevention requires the early identification of risks that allow for preventive or mitigatory measures to be designed and implicated. This applies to the prevention of human rights violations as well as to the prevention of wider conflict or crisis. OHCHR is working to develop its early warning capacity because it believes that human rights-based analysis has clear added value for the United Nations’ early warning and prevention objectives across all pillars of the Organization.

Understanding the international human rights system as an early warning system

The United Nations human rights system is designed to support States in identifying human rights violations – actual or potential – and to put in place measures to ensure that such violations do not continue and are avoided in the future. Human rights mechanisms, such as the treaty bodies and the special procedures, are key components of the system which can serve to identify risk factors and recommend actions to remedy and avoid recurrence of human rights violations. Human rights monitoring, where the actual situation is measured against international human rights standards, is an essential tool for identifying violations.

At the same time, this system can serve a wider purpose in providing early warning of broader risks of conflict or crisis. There is evidence that human rights violations, particularly when widespread and systematic, can serve as indicators of an increased risk of conflict, violence or instability because violations of human rights are often the underlying long-term drivers or the shorter-term triggers of conflict or instability. The Security Council has acknowledged that serious human rights abuses are not only a consequence of conflict but “can be an early indication of a descent into conflict or escalation of violence” and that the domestic implementation of human rights obligations can “contribute to timely prevention of conflicts.” S/RES/2171(2014)

Several human rights mechanisms have sought to develop early warning capabilities with a view to the early identification of human rights violations but also the consequent effects of conflict or crisis that such violations can generate. 

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination developed, in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide, early warning and urgent procedures to try to prevent serious violations of the Convention. Its early warning measures aim “at preventing existing problems from escalating into conflicts and can also include confidence-building measures to identify and support whatever strengthens and reinforces racial tolerance, particularly to prevent a resumption of conflict where it has previously occurred.” 

The Commission of Inquiry on Burundi has adopted a preventive approach to its work “in line with the principles of early warning and prevention”, seeking to identify risk factors and preventive measures. Prevention is increasingly being incorporated into the mandates of human rights mechanisms, including Special Procedures mandates and commissions of inquiry.

The importance of all human rights for early warning

The early warning potential of the United Nations human rights system is most effective when the full range of human rights is considered at the same time within a specific context. Conflict or crisis is rarely caused by isolated violations of individual rights, but the risk of conflict or crisis increases as a wider range of human rights are violated in a systematic or widespread fashion. Violations of economic, social and cultural rights can be as significant as violations of civil and political rights for the purposes of early warning. 

Monitoring and reporting are important tools of human rights protection and promotion. Gathering, verifying and analyzing information and data on human rights helps to identify not only that violations are or have taken place, but also to anticipate future violations. The United Nations human rights system has developed a sophisticated range of mechanisms for monitoring, reporting, and advice, looking at all types of human rights, that can serve wider early warning purposes.

The role of violations of economic, social and cultural rights is often overlooked in this regard. There is clear evidence that they can be causes, consequences and often even predictors of violence, social unrest and conflict just as much as violations of civil and political rights. Violations of economic, social and cultural rights stem from a variety of factors including unequal power distribution, discrimination and inequality that are know drivers of conflict. 

In 2016, OHCHR produced a report on early warning and economic, social and cultural rights, which considers the links between violations of economic, social and cultural rights and violence, social unrest and conflict and suggests that an analysis of the enjoyment of these rights could inform early warning efforts for effective preventive action.

Similarly, analysis of trends in the violation of civil and political rights can provide an early indication of impeding human rights crisis. One famous example was the report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Bacre Ndiaye, on his visit to Rwanda one full year before the start of the 1994 Genocide. The Special Rapporteur highlighted a wide range of concerns not only about killings, but also use of media for hate purposes, a weak judicial system and widespread impunity. In a key passage, he addressed whether some killings already amounted to genocide. Whilst he did not consider himself qualified to pass judgment on that count, he observed that: “The cases of intercommunal violence brought to the Special Rapporteur's attention indicate very clearly that the victims of the attacks, Tutsis in the overwhelming majority of cases, have been targeted solely because of their membership of a certain ethnic group, and for no other objective reason.” This should have served as a wake-call for the international community: between April and July 1994, up to 1,000,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were massacred by Hutu militia in Rwanda.

In reality, all human rights have a preventive effect and therefore all play a role in identifying the problems which can, if left unaddressed, lead of conflict, violence and crisis. The protests in Tunisia in late 2010 and 2011 that led to the so-called “Arab Spring” were sparked by the self-immolation of a street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, as a drastic act of protest. His grievances were a mixture of violations of his economic and social rights and his civil and political rights. His protest resonated with many other people with similar grievances, against a backdrop of long-standing inequality, high unemployment, limited and precarious access to livelihoods, and very limited ability to redress the status quo. The result was a sudden crisis that affected a whole region and whose effects are still being felt today. 

At the time, the then High Commissioner for Human Rights pointed out, in an important speech entitled “The Tunis Imperative”, that many of the issues that led to the Arab Spring had been highlighted by the human rights mechanisms – treaty bodies and special procedures – but not picked up by the analytical frameworks that informed the work of United Nations’ peace and security and development pillars: “The problem, I would submit, was that the analytical lens was, in some instances, too narrow, and in others it was simply turned in the wrong direction.” She went on to argue that the United Nations needed to expand “our analytical lens to include all civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.” 

Developing OHCHR’s early warning capability to support the prevention work of the United Nations

The challenge of how the United Nations system can make best use of human rights information and analysis to inform its work across all pillars of the Organization remains today. The Secretary-General, in his Call to Action on Human Rights, has said that all United Nations programmes, in mission and non-mission (development) settings, should be “informed by a human rights risk and opportunity analysis”.

The Human Rights Council, in its resolution A/HRC/RES/45/31, has requested OHCHR to strengthen its capability to identify, verify, manage and analyze data and early warning signs emanating from all sources, including from States, human rights mechanisms, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations, human rights defenders, United Nations country teams and the Office’s field presences, and to address them in accordance with OHCHR’s mandate. It asked the High Commissioner, where OHCHR identifies patterns of human rights violations that point to a heightened risk of a human rights emergency, to bring that information to the attention of Council in a manner that reflects the urgency of the situation and that maintains space for dialogue and cooperation with the State and region concerned, including through briefings.

OHCHR is developing its early warning capacity and engaging with Member States, United Nations partners and other actors to ensure that early warning analysis makes full use of human rights information and analysis. The Office has begun to deploy dedicated capacity in its regional offices to support OHCHR’s country engagement and that of the wider UN system, including UN Resident Coordinators (RCs) and UN Country Teams (UNCTs) on early warning, preparedness, crisis response, including analysis of emerging human rights issues and trends and macro-economic analysis.

Among the areas of engagement, the Office is supporting the UN in establishing human rights early warning systems and integrating human rights analysis into the UN’s strategic planning. This also involves working with National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI) and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) partners on strengthening human rights in humanitarian action. The work is focused on supporting the UN to meet commitments in the UN Secretary General’s Call to Action on Human Rights, building on the Human Rights Up Front (HRuF) initiative, as well as the Secretary General’s prevention agenda to strengthen system-wide prevention capacity at the regional level.

OHCHR participates in the Regional Monthly Reviews (RMR), a process, developed under Human Rights Up Front and subsequently incorporated into the Secretary-General’s integrated prevention platform, to ensure that the UN system has a shared understanding of situations and takes early and coordinated action for prevention. 

Coordinated at the Director level, the RMR uses a combination of development, political, human rights and humanitarian analyses to define recommendations for strengthening UN action. The review members consider early warning information and agree upon possible preventive and responsive measures to support the UN field presence in responding to evolving situations. Their decisions leverage the full range of UN mandates in response to any concerns. OHCHR ensures that the outputs of United Nations human rights mechanisms and other human rights information are integrated into the RMR analysis.

OHCHR support for human rights-based early warning beyond the United Nations

Since 2018, OHCHR has been collaborating with African Union and the World Bank’s Global Program for Reintegration Support (GPRS) to provide support for strengthening the AU early warning methodologies through the integration of a human rights-based approach into the AU Continental Early Warning System (CEWS). This work has focused on increasing and incentivizing the uptake of primary data sources, using a rights-based approach to data collection, analysis, and action. Other international and regional organizations have early warning capacities that, to varying degrees, make use of human rights information.

National human rights institutions have an important role of play at the national level for early warning of human rights violations as part of their mandate to protect and promote human rights nationally. This function can serve to identify wider risks and help to put in place policies and practice to encourage the peaceful resolution of conflict, address grievances and inequalities, and build resilience and preparedness.

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