a) Basic principles on documenting human rights violations

The term documentation could have different meanings, depending on the geographical context or in the field where it is employed. It is important to stress that documenting is a processincluding different steps. Furthermore, documenting human rights violations could be based on a wide range of purposes: education and awareness-rising, litigation, direct assistance to victims, historical records. It follows that the documenting process could be different according to the purpose on which it is carried out. Generally it consists of:

a. Collecting the data: Determining what information is needed and establishing means for acquiring it. Monitoring is a key-mean of collecting information but it is important to decide what we would like to monitor according to our purpose: media, events etc. Information could be also collected by fact-finding activities which include interviews, questionnaires, survey etc.

b. Organising the data: Recording the discovered information and storing such in appropriate containers (called documents) or collecting already-existing documents containing the needed information. There are different ways of recording data: two important tools are provided by Huridocs (see the web links): “Events standard format” and “Micro-thesauri” provide frameworks for structuring and analyzing information.

c. Analysing the data to make them more accessible. This step could mean elaborating statistics, charts and graphs to make findings more visible.

d. Disseminating the data relying upon a precise strategy.

Projects aiming at documenting human rights violation should acknowledge all these steps in the process of the documentation. It is not necessary to go through all these phases at the same time. It could be an option for example focusing only on the collection of data and recording them later.

b) Useful links

International human rights instruments:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/index.htm

OHCHR manual on human rights monitoring:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/training.htm

International Human Rights information and documentation systems:
www.huridocs.org

HURIDOCS training manuals:
http://www.huridocs.org/tools/violations

International jurisprudence on sexual orientation and gender identity:
hrw.org/lgbt/jurisprudence.htm

Training manual on campaigning:
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/campaigning-manual-eng

Human rights tools library:
http://www.humanrightstools.org/hrt/hrt/library.htm

Universal human rights index:
http://www.universalhumanrightsindex.org/

Training Manual on Human Rights monitoring:
http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/monitoring/index.html

Equitas, Monitoring and Advocacy:
http://www.equitas.org/english/ed-manuals/downloads/CHRF-Manual-Fac-IHRTP-English2004-S7-MKT.pdf

Workshop on Measurement and Human Rights
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/cchrp/programareas/measurement/Measurement_Report_12_18.doc

Useful resources from ILGA-Europe

Please find below useful resources from ILGA-Europe:

• Guidelines for Human Rights Violation Documentation Fund projects
• What is monitoring
• Example of interview questions
• OSCE individual complaint form