New international strategy - now in Russian
What tasks are the Danish Institute for Human Rights to take on internationally? And what is better left for other actors? These defining questions are answered in the new international strategy for the period 2015-2017.
The Danish Institute for Human Rights is mandated to promote and protect human rights nationally and internationally, but working all over the world, prioritising has to firm in order to secure that the tasks undertaken are the ones the institute is able to solve the best.
- We have decided to focus our international work on enabling states to protect and fulfil human rights.This, wefeel, is a natural extension of the role we play at home as Denmark’s NationalHuman Rights Institution, international director, Charlotte Flindt Pedersen explains.
Four clear priorities
The Danish Institute for Human Rights has defined four priorities to guide the international work the coming three years.
2. Global human rights issues
3. Human rights expertise as an instrument for change
4. Effectiveness of our work
Focus on human rights institutions in priority countries is not limited to cooperation with other national human rights institutions. It also covers ministries with human rights mandates - typically ministries of justice - and justice system actors like police and primary justice providers.
Global human rights issues are linked to three thematic focal areas: human rights and sustainable development, human rights and business and human rights and universality.
Priority number three is to ensure that the research capacity of the institute is also put to use on the ground all over the world.
Finally, the effectiveness of our work is to be strengthened by a permanent presence in priority countries, likewise the furthering of documentation and measuring of our work.
Hard choices
The Danish Institute for Human Rights will aim to strengthen the international human rights system as itprovides crucial support to states in the protection
and promotion of human rights. This new emphasis implies that, from now on,we will leave it to other actors to strengthen the institutional capacity of civilsociety.
- But civil society will remain strategic partners of collaboration
in terms of knowledge and resources for us, Charlotte Flindt Pedersen underlines.
Available in three languages
The strategy was first published in Danish and English, but recently a Russian version has been made. The institute works several places in Eurasia where Russian is the main working language.