Uganda: The 1st annual human rights course

The Foundation for Human Rights Initiative (FHRI) with financial support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) convened a 5 day Human Rights Summer Course for Human Rights Defenders in the Great Lakes region from 4th -9th October 2009 at Nile Resort Hotel Jinja, Uganda.

Under the theme, ‘Building an effective Social Justice Movement in the East and Horn of Africa’, the purpose of this in-augural course was to provide Human Rights Defenders with a platform to Reflect on their human rights work and experiences as professionals and activists and enrich them with knowledge on the risks, opportunities and new tactics to advance human rights and democratic development in the region.

Addressing the 22 Human Rights Defenders from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, H.E Mr. Martin Shearman the British High Commissioner to Uganda who officiated at the opening of the Course urged the human rights defenders to be pro-active and extensively draw lesions from the UK Human Rights Act, 2000.

The course was facilitated by a Faculty of five well grounded and experienced human rights defenders who interrogated key subjects including; Leadership development and constituency building, dealing with impunity, the legislative process and the criminal justice system, International Human Rights system and its relevance in the quest for respect of human rights, Electoral Democracy and Monitoring and Evaluation with each of the delegates sharing on specific country human rights situations.

As a way of responding to the emerging human rights trends in the region, the course participants flagged up key actions and strategies that could be undertaken to effectively deal with this situation:

* To develop a system for monitoring, documenting and disseminating information on the situation of human rights and challenges faced by Human Rights Defenders in the region.
* To develop a unified and coordinated approach to address and respond to such violations and challenges facing Human Rights Defenders in the Great lakes region.

* To study and use the Chicago principles in programming, monitoring and evaluating human rights interventions by Human Rights Defenders in dealing with impunity in the region.
* To develop regional mechanisms to respond to Counter Terrorism Legislation and practice in the region.

o To build the civic competence of the population to promote electoral democracy.
* Identify, study and document good practices in the region that can be replicated across countries in improving the access to justice for the poor and vulnerable.
* Encourage collective advocacy for Law Reform amongst Law Reform Commissions and Human Rights Defenders in the region.

o To upscale independent human rights monitoring and reporting to the regional and international treaty bodies.
o To collaborate with other Human Rights Defenders in the production of country human rights status reports to international treaty bodies and subsequent follow up of recommendations and concluding remarks and
o To Lobby for the expansion of the jurisdiction of the EACJ to entertain human rights issues.

The meeting resolved to hold the Course annually on a rotational basis and the second course shall be held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2010 under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists (Kenya) Chapter.