These modules were developed within the framework of the international, inter-institutional research, training and capacity-building project ‘Consolidating the Profession: The Human Rights Field Officer’. This project was conceived and led by the University of Nottingham Human Rights Law Centre.  It was carried out in partnership with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation, the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa, the University of Pretoria Human Rights Centre, and individual experts on human rights fieldwork who particpated in their personal capacities, Professor Vitit Muntarbhorn and Dr. Roberto Garretón.

All project training modules were piloted in programmes carried out by the project in Afghanistan, with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (August 2006 and May 2007), in Jordan, with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (December 2006), and Ghana, with the participation of all United Nations human rights field operations in West Africa and their civil society partners (April 2007). The modules are made available to relevant organisations and individual human rights workers, with the intention of contributing to the enhancement of the professional quality of human rights fieldwork. Such organisations and workers are welcome to adapt the modules for their own training and capacity-building purposes.  This website contains a library of materials related to human rights fieldwork, as well as reports on all research, consultation and training activities carried out within the framework of the project. Attention is drawn, in particular, to a key project output, a set of Guiding Principles for Human Rights Field Officers Working in Conflict and Post-conflict Environments, which can be downloaded here.

 

The training modules can be downloaded in either PDF or DOC format from the following links:

 

The Ethics of Human Rights Fieldwork  PDF  -  DOC

 

Human Rights Field Operations: Development and Functions  PDF -  DOC

 

Negotiating Cultural and Religious Issues  PDF  - DOC

 

Human Rights Field Operations in Partnership with Civil Society  PDF  -  DOC