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20 March 2023
The new Working Paper The Emergence of Digital Human Rights Tracking Tools and Databases published by our Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP) identifies convergences, challenges and best practices related to innovative digital human rights tracking tools and databases.
The author Domenico Zipoli questions, in the paper’s 24 pages, whether the current international human rights system would benefit from more effective measures of data collection and digital tracking. He does so by analysing 15 selected information management tools developed by different stakeholders – providing for each tool dedicated hyperlinks, its main functions, a list of stakeholders responsible for the administration of the tool, a list of main users as well as specific challenges.
‘This publication is an important step towards assessing the value of digitalization for a more systemic approach to human rights monitoring and implementation’ explains Dr Zipoli, Project Coordinator at the Geneva Human Rights Platform.
‘This paper will be of interest to human rights software developers who lack comparative studies, international and regional human rights bodies, and national human rights actors, including human rights defenders and rights holders who deserve to be better informed on these tools’ benefits and potential impact on privacy’ he adds.
Geneva Academy
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The development of digital human rights tracking tools and databases is a potentially significant step forward for the realisation of human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the national level. The global interest in such software and the maturity of available tools indicates that it is only a matter of time before these are the rule, rather than the exception. However, it is still early days with little empirical evidence of their true practical value.
‘Whilst the trend is expanding, we still lack coordination, exchange of good practices and challenges among different tool developers and users. Our aim is to fill this specific gap’ underlines Dr Zipoli.
‘We also hope that this publication will improve knowledge exchange between software developers and policymakers using such tools and databases, thus fostering cooperation between the two categories of human rights actors’ he adds.
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The publication of this Working Paper marks the start of a one-year GHRP-led initiative dedicated to the study of digital human rights tracking tools and databases – supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.
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Via its DHRTTDs Directory, the Geneva Human Rights Platform provides a comprehensive list and description of such key tools and databases. But how to navigate them? Which tool should be used for what, and by whom? This interview helps us understand better the specificities of the April highlight of the directory: TransMonEE Database and Dashboard
Geneva Academy
Our Geneva Human Rights Platform offered, in collaboration with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a three-day executive training course for Geneva-based diplomats on the functioning of UN human rights mechanisms and negotiation practices at the multilateral level.
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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.
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
This training course will explore the origin and evolution of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and its functioning in Geneva and will focus on the nature of implementation of the UPR recommendations at the national level.
Olivier Chamard/Geneva Academy
UN Photo/Violaine Martin
The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy