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In July 2006, the American University Center for Global Peace received a grant from the United States Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, to provide support and technical expertise in the development of an Iraq National Human Rights Commission. The project was designed to assist a wide variety of actors in the following areas: (1) defining the Commission’s role; (2) addressing issues related to the Commission’s legal structure; and (3) promoting the Commission to the Iraqi public; and (4) ensuring that Commission members have access to the training and education in human rights required for the effective and meaningful operation of the Committee both domestically and as a participant in international human rights bodies. Among the project’s first-year achievements are the following: Human Rights Trainings: A series of assessments, trainings and workshops for high-level stakeholders in the field of human rights. Held in Amman, Jordan in July and September 2006, as well as February 2007, these trainings focused on the establishment process for national human rights institutions; legislative drafting of human rights law and procedures for handling human rights cases; the roles and responsibilities of national human rights institutions and responsiveness to such issues as refugees and internal displacement. Northern Ireland Human Rights Study Tour: The AU-CGP team engaged Iraqi stakeholders and potential human rights commissioners with the internationally respected institution in Belfast. The trip also featured meetings with leading civil society groups and public institutions focused on upholding equality for all peoples, respect for minority rights, including women, children and immigrants, as well as the administration of justice. Civil Society Outreach and Education: The outreach campaign sought to increase public understanding of the role and function of the future Human Rights Commission through a survey of attitudes on human rights, a newspaper advertisement campaign as well as an informational brochure distributed to Iraqi ministries and universities. In addition to facilitating the above events and activities, AU-GCP developed, in consultation with colleagues from Iraq, a series of informational and analytical documents and research tools, including: a legal analysis of the draft HRC Law, a reference tool, an advocacy tool for training and outreach, and a check list to build the human rights and legal knowledge base of human rights stakeholders and prospective commissioners. Phase I Activities: July 2006 - December 2007 Situational Assessment involving key Iraqi stakeholders held in Amman, Jordan in July 2006. The purpose of this assessment workshop was to identify existing needs in the context of human rights institution building and highlight how our project might support Iraqis in their effort to establish a Human Rights Commission. AU-CGP trainers guided stakeholders through the establishment process for a national human rights institution, which included a structured dialogue around the following questions:
The AUCGP team presented a power point entitled “Modalities of Stakeholder Participation in Contemporary Human Rights Practice,” to provide examples of international and national stakeholder consultations, revealing the significance of meaningful stakeholder inclusion in contemporary human rights institution building, and showing the various ways in which this has been achieved in different countries. We also distributed CD-Roms to all stakeholders that contain the key reference documents on human rights institutions, treaties and AU created training documents (in Arabic wherever possible). We agreed that it is critical that the AU team connect with the newly established parliamentary HR Committee, chaired by Sayyed Mohammed Al Heidari. Following the July meeting we produced the following documents, taking into account the feedback from participants at the July meeting: 1. Revised HRC establishment checklist 2. Final version of Reference Tool 3. Memo on Roles and Responsibilities vis-a-vis the Human Rights Ministry and the proposed Commission 4. Legal Analysis of Draft HRC Law. We rapidly prepared to present a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) Establishment Process Workshop for the parliamentary Human Rights Committee Chairman and members, held in Amman in September 2006. The purpose of the workshop was:
Production of Revised Legal Analysis of Draft Legislation: As a follow-up to the meeting with Iraqi Human Rights Committee parliamentarians in September 2006, we agreed to revise our legal analysis of the draft legislation based on questions raised at the meeting (in Arabic and English) ‘Roles and Responsibilities of NHRIs’ Workshop held in Amman in February 2007 The AUCGP met with the Chairman and all 12 members of the parliamentary human rights committee charged with drafting the human rights commission law. Training topics as requested by the Committee included:
Launch of Project Website Developed in February 2007, the AUCGP-IHRC website list of references/tools Northern Ireland Study Tour in Belfast, UK in May 2007 This activity was hosted by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC). As Iraq’s parliament has yet to pass the law that establishes the Human Rights Commission and, thus, there are no Iraqi High Commissioners. we selected a group of high ranking Iraqi human rights stakeholders, including the Chairman of the Human Rights Committee in the Parliament, two judges from the Higher Judicial Council and The goal of the study tour was to have key Iraqis who are leaders in the field of human rights engage in a dialogue with their counterparts at the Commission in order to observe what a highly functional and well-run Human Rights Commission actually does. American University selected the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) as a partner for the study tour activity due not only to its superior international reputation, but also the analogous post-conflict reconciliation challenges. Advocacy Training The last major activity of Phase I was a study tour for stakeholders in an Iraqi Human Rights Commission, in September in Vienna. The focus was on advocacy, by the commission to be established as well as information on how its efforts can be coordinated with work by NGOs and other governmental bodies. Meetings with the Austrian Human Rights Advisory Board, the government Ombudsperson, and several NGOs provided context and background on advocacy in Austria and also introduced innovative human rights projects there such as alternative dispute settlement techniques. Each group provided examples of outreach and how they might be adapted for Iraq will. Outreach and Education Campaign As security conditions continue to prevent active in-country educational activities by our team, AUCGP’s outreach campaign has produced:
Phase II Activities January 2008 - March 2009 Capacity Building for the Fledgling Iraqi HRC In this phase, we will focus on preparing an assessment and advising representatives of the Iraqi Government on planning, budgetary, equipment and infrastructure needs for the new HRC. Specifically, training will focus on the relationship among strategic planning, budgets and expenditures. We will design and implement intensive, early-on training programs on roles and responsibilities of an HRC for the Commissioners and staff of the new Iraq HRC, including training on how to manage and account for the Commission’s budget (with a focus on accountability and transparency). From the beginning, this project has acknowledged the necessity of a national human rights Commission to have knowledge about United Nations human rights systems and mechanisms. The project has also underscored the need for domestic human rights bodies to develop skills in engaging civil society on the usage of these bodies. While progress has been made in both of these areas, a trip to Geneva in the second phase of the project will further promote these goals. In this phase of the project, a new group of Iraqis – comprised of newly selected Commissioners, media experts and educators engaged in popular human rights education projects - will spend a week in Geneva where they will observe United Nations human rights mechanisms in operation. Participants will benefit from meetings with both governmental and nongovernmental human rights experts, as well as from specific AU-organized trainings with key human rights organizations based in Geneva, such as the International Human Rights Service, and other nongovernmental organizations which are leaders in the field of human rights training and civil society. Other new activities for this phase include developing a generic tool to cover the complaints mechanism process for NHRIs, as well as specific tools to help with reporting in compliance with, for example, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Training sessions will be used to work through the new tools. In addition, training in how to establish the guidelines for bringing a case before the new Commission, with a focus on case management, procedures and so forth, will be implemented. Concerning international organizations, we will also focus on preparing Commissioners and staff for effective participation in international human rights bodies, including UN organizations, through trainings and new tool development. Deliverables include new tools and trainings and enhanced capacity of new Commissioners and HRC staff. Most importantly we will take our lead from our stakeholders and design trainings and tools around their expressed needs, for example the issues of internally displaced persons and discrimination (e.g. sex, religion/sect and ethnicity). Outreach Our goal is to create enhanced awareness about human rights and national human rights institutions within Iraq, as well as within the significant professional and secular community of Iraqis now living in Jordan. In order to accomplish this goal we want to focus on creating and/or strengthening linkages between the HR Parliamentary Committee, the new HRC and the HR Ministry, as well as between these three institutions and the two Ministries of Education, universities in the north, center and south, community groups, unions, mosques and churches. Our community outreach approach will be developed in close cooperation with the Iraqi HRC once it is established, as well as the Ministry of Human Rights, Ministry of Education, the Bureau of Missing Persons, the Ministry of Justice, the HR Committee in Parliament, and local NGOs. In this new phase, we will have a program coordinator based in Baghdad and he/she will organize stakeholder meetings to include local NGOs. Deliverables will include: trainings, community group meetings, and. development of new outreach materials in Arabic. Surveys The use of surveys in this phase will guide us in correcting and improving our materials and message. Relying on semi structured community focus groups and in-depth one-on-one interviews, we will survey Iraqis in Iraq and Jordan to gain knowledge about levels of awareness of human rights in general and the Iraq HRC initiative in particular. We will also “test” our outreach materials with the survey populations. This will allow us to constantly correct our materials for message and content. Deliverables include design and implementation of surveys, as well as analysis and reporting. Legislative Drafting , Legislative Analysis and Legislative Negotiation Our work over the last year has clearly indicated a dramatic need for training on legislative analysis, legislative drafting and legislative negotiation for the members of the HR Committee in the Iraqi parliament. By legislative analysis we mean the ability to analyze existing and draft legislation brought to the attention of the HR Committee, from within and outside of Iraq; by legislative drafting we mean the ability to draft professional legislation that meets international standards; and by legislative negotiation we refer to training to get parties to agree on a common approach. We will conduct a series of trainings on legislative drafting, legislative analysis and legislative negotiation, drawing on relevant material from recent case studies involving international human rights law, including the body of material on protection of persons with disabilities. We will also work with the HR Committee to strengthen the laws they are working on at any given time. Deliverables include training manuals in Arabic and training sessions in Arabic, as well as examples of our input into new draft laws the committee is working on at any given time. Our legislative drafting, analysis and negotiation tools will be of use not only by the Iraqi HRC, but also by the HR Committee and Human Rights Ministry. Advocacy – Expanding our Human Rights Tool Kit A key focus of our work this year is advocacy. We plan to test and further refine the tool we developed on advocacy this summer (after translating it into Arabic) and to design a series of trainings focused on enhancing the capacity of existing and future human rights institutions in Iraq to engage meaningfully with civil society stakeholders. It is essential that governmental stakeholders understand the role of advocacy in a developing democracy. At the same time, Iraqi non-governmental stakeholders must understand their own role in relation to human rights institutions and require strengthening in order to effectively engage in advocacy on human rights issues. In our view, strong advocacy can not exist where there is little knowledge and understanding of basic, universal human rights. Topics that will be covered include:
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