On 23 to 25 November 2021, 15 participants composed of technical staff and certain Commissioners from the Commission Nationale des Droits Humains (CNDH) undertook a training designed to build capacity to draft investigative reports on allegations of human rights violations. The training was led remotely by UpRights Co-founder, Valérie Gabard, in coordination with on-site facilitator and human rights specialist Sawadogo Lamoussa Carol.
The training formed part of the three year “Human Rights and Access to Justice in Burkina Faso” program implemented by a consortium of organisations led by the American Bar Association Initiative for the Rule of Law, and including Freedom House and Search For Common Ground and Pact, was funded by the United States Agency for International Development.
The training is an important step towards improved human rights reports, effective collection of evidence and ultimately an improved human rights situation.
For more information click here
From 26 July to 31 July 2021, Valérie Gabard, co-founder of UpRights delivered two trainings for members of the National Commission for Human Rights and for members of civil society organisations on best practices for the documentation of serious human violations and international crimes as part of the “Human Rights and Access to Justice in Burkina Faso” program (DHAJ) lead by the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI).
From 26 to 28 July 2021, UpRights delivered a training for the members and the staff of the Burkina Faso National Commission for Human Rights. The three-day training centred on techniques to improve the documentation of serious human violations and international crimes in the context of crises or conflict situations.
The deterioration of the security situation in Burkina Faso in recent years has led to an increase in the number and a change in the nature of serious human rights violations and abuses committed in the country. The training was designed to assist the commissioners and staff of the National Commission for Human Rights in carrying out their human rights documentation mandate in this context. The goal of the training, according to Valérie Gabard, co-founder of UpRights “is to give this relatively young institution a systematic framework and the tools to facilitate the work of investigators in the field”.
This training was followed by a two-day training on the same topic for civil societies organisations (field partners of the National Commission for Human Rights) and members of two working groups within the Commission. It was the first capacity-building training for Civil Society Organizations from the region, and it aimed at harmonizing the practices of the organisations for the documentation of serious human violations and international crimes in the context of Burkina Faso.
“This training is welcome because it meets the needs of our work in the field as members of an organization for the defense of human rights, particularly in terms of information collection, treatment, approach, organization of field missions, and especially of documentation and data backup. Given the situation the country is going through, this training will allow us to be more productive”, said at the end of the training Ousséni Maïga, Secretary general of the Center for Good Governance in the Sahel, Vice-president of the working group “Service to victims including legal and judicial assistance”.
These two capacity building trainings are part of the “Human Rights and Access to Justice in Burkina Faso” program (DHAJ), a program funded by the American Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by a consortium of organisations comprising the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI – leader of the project) but also Freedom House, Search For Common Ground, and Pact.
To learn more, follow the links to the Burkina Faso National Commission for Human Rights website:
Renforcement de capacités : Les membres de la CNDH formés aux techniques d’investigation
On 14 June 2021, UpRights co-Founder, Valérie Gabard, participated in the virtual seminar ‘Strengthening Domestic Capacity to Prosecute and Adjudicate International and Transnational Crimes in Africa’.
The high-level seminar, organised by the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, the Asser Institute and the Antonio Cassese Initiative, followed a training course held in February 2020 in Arusha, Tanzania and an online training in March 2021. 17 judges and prosecutors from Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroun, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Niger participated in the series of lectures of the high-level seminar.
UpRights conducted an interactive exercise for the Judges and Prosecutors’ oriented around the type of international crimes committed by armed groups and defence and security forces in respective West African contexts. The training allowed the participants to apply challenges present in their respective jurisdictions. Participants working individually and in groups identified whether war crimes and crimes against humanity may have been committed. The focus of the exercise was around the prosecution of international crimes in the context of the fight against terrorism with a particular focus on sexual and gender-based violence.
