Themes
- Women's human rights.
- Human rights and business.
- Enforced disappearances.
- Human rights and European policies.
- Human rights impact assessment.
See also:
Our resource center website on human rights impact assessment
More on our HRIA tools:
- HeRWAI on health rights for women
- DOVA on combating domestic violence
- Human Rights and Business tools
- Human rights impact of anti-trafficking policies
- Human rights in European policies
Oxford Journal article on HeRWAI
Read the 2009 article in Oxford Journal of Human Rights Practice
See also:
The report of the
conference 2007: HRIA in Practice (PDF, 0.25 MB)
Human rights impact assessment
- HRIA training in South Africa
Policies and activities can have positive or negative effects on the human rights situation in a country. Even activities that are not intended to impact on human rights - such as the business planning of companies - can do so nonetheless, eg. through labour conditions or discriminatory policies. Aim for human rights believes that human rights need to be taken into account from the outset by governments, organisations and companies.
Measuring human rights
Aim for human rights, in cooperation with other organisations, develops human rights impact assessment methods and tools to assess the impact of governmental and other policies on human rights. These help to translate human rights norms into practical and workable objectives, and thus contribute directly to the realisation of human rights.
An example: Measuring the right to health
The right to health is a human right that governments are obligated to protect. Building hospitals is one of the aspects concerned. However, to ensure the availability of adequate healthcare, governments must also consider issues such as attracting sufficient staff to run the hospitals, and making sure hospitals are accessible to all (including women and people living in remote rural areas). Furthermore, the realisation of the right to health requires that everyone has access to clean water, sanitation, food, safe working conditions and correct information. Health facilities will have little effect as long as these basic health conditions are not fulfilled. Human rights impact assessment can help to uncover this complex truth.
Practical objectives
By formulating practical objectives, all the actors involved can ensure that the right to health can be attained. This however requires action and not only words. Organisations with proposals should have the opportunity to enter a serious debate with government, and policy makers should predict what impact their activities will have concerning the right to health.
Objectives of human rights impact assessment
The objective of translating human rights norms into practice is to improve policy formation by governments and others. Human rights impact assessment means that the results and impact of activities are visible and can be evaluated. This contributes to the realisation of concrete rights for people worldwide.
Online resource centre for human rights impact assessment
There are many organisations around the world who are active in the field of human rights impact assessment. Aim for human rights works together with these to stimulate the development and use of HRIA. There is no single human rights impact assessment method that is applicable to all situations. Depending on the objective and context, a specific tool is usually required. Policy makers and others can learn from previous initiatives however, and in order to promote a deeper understanding, Aim for human rights has developed its Human Rights Impact Resource Centre.
Workshops and training
Aim for human rights facilitates workshops and training in human rights impact assessment worldwide. Participants so far have been a.o. (donor) organisations, government officials and business managers. Click here for examples. For further information on this or any other aspect of Aim for human right’s impact assessment work, please contact Marike Radstaake, manager HRIA, by phone +31 (30) 233 40 27 or by email.
