The Geneva Human Rights Platform Training Hub: Two New Regular Courses on Offer

17 February 2023

The Training Hub of our Geneva Human Rights Platform will offer, as of this year, two new annual training courses on business and human rights and on the implementation of international human rights standards.

These complement the Training Hub’s existing offer of regular annual courses on the protection of human rights and the environment and on the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), as well as customized training courses on demand.

‘Our Training Hub is expanding and diversifying its offer to support national actors and other stakeholders to engage more effectively with the Geneva-based human rights mechanisms and bodies, as well as to address current human rights challenges’ explains Felix Kirchmeier, Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform.

‘We are very pleased to offer these two new courses that will be of interest to staff of NGOs, research institutes, UN agencies and other national and international organisations, members of National Human Rights Institutions, as well as representatives of governments and academia’ he adds

The UN human rights system – composed of UN special procedures, fact-finding missions, UN treaty bodies and the Universal Periodic Review – forms an extensive structure to review state compliance with international human rights standards. This sophisticated architecture at the international level finds complementarity at the national level with the participation of numerous actors: governments, independent state institutions, parliaments, civil society groups and UN agencies among others.

More recently, we have also seen the emergence of national human rights structures such as inter-ministerial committees, national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up, national human rights institutions and national civil society coalitions. These bodies attempt, individually or through collaborative efforts, to ensure state compliance and accountability to the recommendations emanating from the UN human rights system.

Using concrete examples, the training course The International Human Rights Standards and System: Monitoring and Implementation Strategies at the National Level will provide an overview of the UN human rights system and explore available strategies for national-level implementation of international human rights recommendations, including the many challenges that such work encounters.

‘This course complements our other regular course on the UPR by delving into additional UN mechanisms for implementation and by strategically advising on their respective strengths, advantages and limitations’ explains Felix Kirchmeier.

The course will take place in Geneva and online from 3 to 7 July 2022. Applications are open and will close at different dates – depending if people apply to follow it in Geneva or online and whether they need a visa or not.

This new training course on business and human rights will take place in Geneva and online from 4 to 8 September 2023. Focusing on the most efficient human rights mechanisms – at national and international levels – to promote and protect human rights in the private sector and address corporations’ human rights abuses, it will be of interest to practitioners from NGOs, National Human Rights Institutions, UN field presences, and governmental agencies.

A full description will be provided soon, along with the application deadlines to follow in Geneva or online.