Protecting Rights through Humanitarian Action
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IASC Task Force on Humanitarian Action and Human Rights

WORKSHOP ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND HUMANITARIAN ACTION

Background
In November 2001, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Task Force on Humanitarian Action and Human Rights organized a workshop in Geneva on human rights training for humanitarian workers. The workshop brought together training experts and practitioners from a broad range of UN agencies, NGOs, as well as the ICRC. The main aim of the workshop was to review existing training material and assess to what extent the humanitarian community would deem it necessary to produce a basic training module common to all actors. During the workshop it became clear that while a wealth of ideas and thinking on the subject had already been put forward, the conceptual and definitional issue of the inter-linkage between human rights and humanitarian action was still in need of clarification (The proceedings of the workshop are posted on the web site Protecting Rights Through Humanitarian Action, hosted by ICVA at ).

Consequently, in 2003 the Task Force decided to convene a second workshop in order to further sharpen the thinking and clarify the links between human rights and humanitarian action. The aim of the workshop would be to focus on the more conceptual and definitional aspects, in order to reach an understanding of commonalities and differences and lay the ground for further future work on the issue.

Furthermore, the Task Force felt that the workshop would be a useful next step in its work in this area, building upon initiatives such as Growing the Sheltering Tree and the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on International Humanitarian, Human Rights, and Refugee Law. Furthermore, it was felt that this workshop would help to bring together the work being done by several actors, including organizations applying a human rights-based approach to humanitarian action.

This workshop should also be seen in the context of the UN Secretary-General's reform programme, including its aspects focusing on strengthening the UN human rights related actions at the country level.

Objectives
The workshop will aim to:

• Explore commonalities and differences in the various approaches to human rights in humanitarian action of various organizations, including human rights-based approaches to humanitarian action;

• Consider the range of strategic choices, obstacles and potential risks involved in pursuing a rights agenda in a humanitarian context;

• Explore options for possible joint programmes and projects for linking human rights and humanitarian action; and

• Put forward recommendations for concrete follow-up actions by the IASC Task Force, participating organizations, and others.

Publication
Following the workshop a publication will be issued containing the discussion papers and a summary note on the workshop. The aim of this publication would be to serve as a reference point on the conceptual aspects on the issue of integrating human rights into humanitarian action.