Human Rights Activists - Protection Mechanisms

Protection Mechanisms

Following the adoption of the declaration on human rights defenders in 1998, a number of initiatives were taken, both at the international and regional level, to increase the protection of defenders and contribute to the full implementation of the Declaration. In this context, the following mechanisms were established:

• The mandate of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders (2000)
• The mandate of the Special Rapporteur of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights on human rights defenders (2004)
• The Human Rights Defenders Unit of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (2001)
• The European Union Guidelines on human rights defenders (2004)

In 2008, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), took the initiative to gather for the first time all the human rights defenders’ institutional mandate-holders (created within the United Nations, the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union) to find ways to enhance coordination and complementarities among themselves and with NGOs.

In 2010, a single inter-mechanisms website was created, gathering all relevant public information on the activities of the different human rights defenders’ protection mandate-holders aims at increasing the visibility of the documentation produced by the mechanisms – press releases, studies, reports, statements, etc., as well as of their actions (country visits, institutional events, trials observed).