The Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health

Forms of Human Rights Work

The practice of human rights can take many forms. Many different methods for promoting rights have evolved in different places all over the world, some using formal legal standards, some more focused on informal claims of justice and wrongness, claims derived from the experiences of peoples lives. Some examples are:

human rights education (making it possible for people to understand the rights they should have as an element of their sense of being empowered subjects)
budget analysis, making public evaluations of whether states have ‘put their money where their obligations are”
human rights based service provision: designing services for discriminated populations and/or evaluating the design of those programs under human rights principles
individual case work, by legal or informal campaigning on specific cases of abuse, often through reports documenting the actual abuses persons face and the standards they violate
law reform, advocacy or litigation aimed at changing the legal framework under which states operate

An excellent directory of internet tools and resources helpful to human rights practitioners can be found at http://www.humanrightstools.org/.

Two of the most relevant for health are advocacy and rights-based programming.

Advocacy (case, institutional, and policy)

Advocacy can be directed at affecting individual cases, as when social workers advocate for a client in order to get her health benefits restored; at an institution, as when advocates worked to get an NGO, such as Human Rights Watch or the Andean Commission of Jurists, to accept local activists as full partners in rights work, or on policy, such as during the ICPD when advocates sought to get a sexual and reproductive rights framework for the Conference outcomes and then sought to use that victory in changing law and policy at home [see Bolivian case, above]

Human rights advocacy generally involves documentation of rights violations and propagating recommendations for remedying those violations.

EXAMPLE: In 1993 the Center for Economic and Social Rights, along with local groups in the Ecuadorian Amazon, lead a campaign to hold the government of Ecuador and foreign oil companies accountable for violations of the right to health and the right to a healthy environment. Scientists collected data to document the dumping of waste by the oil companies and the effects of the exposure in local communities. A report was then generated, using a human rights framework to document the scientific evidence of violations. The report was presented to the government of Ecuador and resulted in collaboration between human rights groups and the Ecuadorian Congress on the creation of stronger environmental regulation.

Rights-based programming

Rights-based programming uses human rights as a framework in program development, implementation and evaluation.

This means that:

the human rights implications of any health policy, program or legislation must be assessed and addressed

human rights must be an integral dimension of the design,implementation, monitoring and evaluation of health-related policies and programs in all spheres, including political, economic and social.

The persons most affected must participate in the design and evaluation of the program affecting them

From: 25 Questions & Answers on Human Rights

A rights-based approach to programming includes addressing the availability, accessibility and affordability of services to meet people's needs; ensures the access to information provided in a confidential setting, and appropriate technologies and resources necessary for people to make their own decisions and choices regarding their health throughout their lifetimes. Services and education must be based on the right to dignity, respect and self-determination.
From http://www.aworc.org/bpfa/gov/escap/health.html

EXAMPLE: In Colombia , a country in the midst of civil war, many communities are cut off from important services because of insecurity. The Mobile Health Brigades, a program of the ICRC, the Colombian Red Cross and the Colombian Ministry of Health sought to reach populations in isolated communities who had no access to care. Health Boats were sent out to reach these communities in two areas of Colombia where river travel was the safest and most reliable means of transport. The services provided by the Health Boats allowed residents to remain in their communities rather than relocate in search of care.

From Growing the Sheltering Tree: Protecting Rights through Humanitarian Action.

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