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25 August 2020
The rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association play a key role in enabling individuals and groups to come together to improve lives and to contribute meaningfully to decision-making processes by governments.
They also help to foster increased transparency and accountability and are basic prerequisites for the goal of securing substantive enjoyment of all human rights.
‘These two rights have been under intensive attacks in the recent decade. State and non-state actors are devising novel ways to undermine these rights and civic space as a whole both at national and international levels’ underlines Felix Kirchmeier, Manager of Policy Studies at the Geneva Academy and Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform.
Studio Incendo
UN Photo>
Our new research project precisely focuses on these two rights.
Supported by the Ford Foundation, it will provide substantive support to the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association Clément Voulé.
‘By engaging States on cases, policies, laws and situations of concern, this mandate plays a crucial role in promoting and protecting the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association and we are very pleased to engage in this new project’ explains Professor Gloria Gaggioli, Director of the Geneva Academy.
Diego Correa
Oxfam International>
The project will notably address emerging issues affecting civic space and develop tools and materials allowing various stakeholders – States, civil society organizations (CSOs), lawyers and human rights defenders – to promote and defend it.
‘This project will allow me to hold consultations with CSOs on emerging issues affecting civic space, including the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the internet shutdown, as well as on women and freedom of peaceful assembly and association. These consultations will inform my future work, including thematic reports that I will present to the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly in 2021’ explains Clément Voulé.
‘With this project, I will also be able to provide states, CSOs and other actors advocacy and implementation material to promote and protect civic space, including guidelines on the role of lawyers in peaceful protest and guidelines on CSOs’ participation in the implementation of SDGs’ he adds.
UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré
Our new policy brief Delivering the Right to Peace: Towards a Reinforced Role of the Human Rights Council in the UN's Peace and Security Framework delves into the possibilities of enhancing the Human Rights Council's involvement in the UN's peace and security functions.
Our podcast In and Around War(s) returns for a third season of conversations on topical issues related to wars.
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Participants in this training course, made of two modules, will examine the major international and regional instruments for the promotion of human rights and the environment, familiarizing themselves with the respective implementation and enforcement mechanisms.
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This training course will examine how the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights have been utilized to advance the concept of business respect for human rights throughout the UN system, the impact of the Guiding Principles on other international organizations, as well as the impact of standards and guidance developed by these different bodies.
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This research will provide legal expertise to a variety of stakeholders on the implementation of the right to food, and on the right to food as a legal basis for just transformation toward sustainable food systems in Europe. It will also identify lessons learned from the 2023 recognition of the right to food in the Constitution of the Canton of Geneva.
Olivier Chamard/Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy