marginalized

Recipe for Dialogue

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:12 -0500

Recipe for Dialogue

by Jo Render

Download full notebook below. [*note]

In this notebook, Jo Render describes a corporate training initiative that helps the private sector to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The process was developed through a collaboration between the NGO Business for Social Responsibility and First Peoples Worldwide, an Indigenous advocacy organization. The trainings, which are focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging) are founded on respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the development process.

In December 2001, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights convened a workshop on "Indigenous Peoples, Private Sector Natural Resource, Energy and Mining Companies and Human Rights." The physical format of this workshop was indicative of the general atmosphere surrounding the issue: Indigenous representatives were lined up on one side of the room, companies were lined up along the other, and nongovernmental organizations sat in the middle. Governments chose not to attend. Toward the end of two days of very tense discussions, a representative from Rio Tinto (a U.K.- based mining company) asked a question of the Indigenous and NGO participants: rather than spend more time repeating everything that companies do wrong, can we (the communities and NGOs) provide more explicit direction to companies on how to do things right?

This challenge was accepted by First Peoples Worldwide and Business for Social Responsibility, two U.S.-based NGOs working internationally on corporate responsibility. Together we developed a training initiative designed as one step in increasing the capacity of companies to build more effective, constructive relationships with Indigenous peoples. The training, which is focused on extractive companies (mining, oil, gas and logging), is founded on a respect for Indigenous peoples’ rights, aspirations and effective participation in the decisions that affect them. Both Indigenous people and company personnel have been involved in the design and implementation of the curriculum. At the core of the training is the concept of free, prior and informed consent (see box, right).

While many governments refuse to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have this right (the right to approve, or reject, a project in their territory), it has been recognized in international law, and national governments are slowly coming around. Laws are rarely specific enough, however, to tell a company what kinds of actions and decision-making processes will meet this expectation. They also neglect to provide an overview of everything at the community-operational level that can affect how communities and companies achieve consent. Our training currently takes the form of a two-and-ahalf-day workshop that provides broad, general guidance on the importance of developing good engagement practices with Indigenous peoples in order to achieve free, prior and informed consent. While we do not guarantee that effective engagement will result in consent, we emphasize that without it, consent cannot be achieved. Ideally, company participation in the training will include multiple voices representing the different company roles that affect, and are affected by, community relations, such as environmental management, land negotiations, government relations, executive offices, communications and investor relations.

The workshop content was tested in February 2003 and presented fully to a group of nine companies in March; a shorter version was tried in November. We were working to create interest in more in-depth training on community engagement techniques at the company site level, and, while we have received expressions of interest in this second step, specific programs have not yet been undertaken. Participants from the March workshop provided very positive feedback, but we do not yet know the level of our impact on the companies at the institutional level. As such, this paper is a description of a "tactic in progress."

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Public Audiences

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:11 -0500

Public Audiences: Creating Space to Recognize Victims of Internal Conflict in Peru

By Sofia Macher, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peru

Download full notebook below. [*note]

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Peru is one of the most recent experiences of processes of transitional justice, institutionalized with the aim of exploring the truth hidden behind a past characterized by massive abuse of human rights. One of the central activities in this process is the Public Audiences, created with the aim of legitimizing and dignifying the personal experiences of the victims in order to support the therapeutic and recuperative work on their behalf.

The TRC was created by the President of the transitional government in June of 2001. It was made up of 12 commission members, all Peruvians, and duration of two years. It did not count on jurisdictional powers: its mandate was to document the grave violations of human rights committed during the twenty years (1980-2000) of the internal armed conflict. However, the Public Audiences were formal sessions in which a victim or family member of a victim would give an account of what had happened before a group of people that had the ethical authority stemming from the State to listen and express their solidarity and acknowledgement. Unlike other Truth Commissions, the purpose of these sessions was not for investigation, but instead an audience for the restitution of rights, of citizenship, and of dignity for the victim, an audience to listen in respectful silence, lending ears to and giving voice to those who had never before been given such things. All these people were assaulted by the State that had the obligation to protect them, and were later rejected by society. Many of them were displaced to other areas, condemned to fear, to silence that broke with the social support of their own communities. The Public Audiences are, so to speak, a step towards the restitution of this so necessary support. But the audiences also had an effect on society itself. Knowing a personal history, one that is parallel to the official history -- that until that moment everyone had believed and known -- had a much greater impact than the Commission’s final report could have ever had. Having heard hundreds of testimonies from different areas of the country, it put on the table the horror to which no Peruvian could feel unconnected.

This notebook shares the way in which the TRC in Peru implemented its Public Audiences in order to dignify the victims, contributing to the general recuperation of society. Certainly there are similarities with other processes and experiences (South Africa or Nigeria, for example), but there are also new aspects that are important since a new format was created that permitted Peru to begin a process of laying the foundations to generate change in the interior of the State, and also in society itself. The lessons of this experience can be useful for any focused process, more so in reconstructing the psychosocial fabric of the people and the victimized society, than in blaming the perpetrators. It is also helpful here to emphasize the effort of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) to support these learning processes.

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.

Making the Global Local

bharris — Fri, 25 May 2007 20:08:07 -0500

Making the Global Local: Applying Global Agreements to Local Enforcement of Human Rights Laws

By Columbus Igboanusi

Download full notebook below. [*note]
See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

In the human rights field, there is often a wide gap between the locus of abuse and the policies, laws and treaties that were created to prevent or stop it. Furthermore, often the discussion of these abuses and the law and policies to prevent them are only talked about in high level policy and diplomatic forums. The tactic presented in this notebook helps bridge these gaps. The League of Human Rights Advocates in Slovakia recruits people from the disenfranchised population – in this case the Roma – to serve as human rights monitors. The monitors learn, often for the first time, about their own rights under national and international law. The LHRA and the monitors then work to enforce those rights –that were signed into existence in far-off capitals–in their own town halls, police stations, schools and communities. The information from local monitors is used to present the true, on the ground, impact of national and international laws in the country. The work done in Slovak may provide each of us with tactical ideas to address similar gaps in each of our communities and countries.

This notebook describes the creation and functioning of a systematic volunteer network of human rights monitors in Slovakia, maintained by the League of Human Rights Advocates (LHRA). The LHRA believes that its grassroots monitoring of local compliance with international human rights commitments assists and encourages the state and its apparatus to live up to its international obligations. The LHRA’s investigatory work, public education efforts and high-level contacts with international human rights NGOs also enable it to put considerable pressure on the Slovak government to live up to its international commitments. The LHRA’s volunteer monitors thus help achieve justice for local Roma people and others suffering human rights abuses. In addition, since LHRA monitors are themselves Roma activists living in Roma communities. The LHRA training process empowers them and their communities to understand and stand up for their rights.

See Phillipe Duhamel's creative take on this resource at interTactica!

*Note: You need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files marked with an asterisk (*). You can download a free version of this program from www.adobe.com.