1. Human Rights assessments are government- or civil society-led participatory processes that aim at diagnosing the human rights (HR) situation in any given country.
2. Human Rights assessments enable the general public (claim holders and duty bearers) to see more clearly how well HR are being respected, protected an fulfilled in the country; they are a tool to mobilize the population; they enable ordinary people (claim holders) to gain a better hold on the present, to shun fatality and to prevent the indefinite perpetuation of HR violations.
3. These assessments seek to establish the truth about HR violations as an-element-of-democratic-rights; they are a powerful means for claim holders to gain/recover some power over running state affair and to understand how the global economy works to their detriment. Conducting HR assessments is also an opportunity to strengthen North-South solidarity and alliances between claim holders and HR organizations.
4. HR assessments are not a new idea; they have been promoted by numerous movements working on HR for a long time. Primarily, they expose the involvement of governments in the North and in the South in the perpetuation of HR violations.
5. Therefore, carrying out HR assessments prepares claim holders for the needed and unavoidable confrontation (not implied in a negative sense) with their government. Without a doubt, HR assessments constitute one of the most effective tools we have to jumpstart the process of reversing decades of social injustice.
6. The initiative to launch HR assessments can be taken by different players, provided they are mobilized. For now, the immediate goal is to force the government to launch a proper HR assessment. If it refuses, civil society must take this upon itself. [This is why, in the spirit of this goal, the People’s Health Movement has embarked in a Global Right to Health and Health Care Campaign covering some 30 countries in five continents].
7. The assessments will strengthen local social movements and will help build democratic spaces; they will also provide an opportunity to engage with the media (as well as monitor and foster the freedom of the press, because we have to ensure media coverage as part of the popular education process when disseminating the assessments’ results). An engagement with universities, with labor unions and with professional associations is highly desirable as well.
8. HR assessments start by establishing the historic, economic, social and political root causes of HR violations. Training courses on assessing HR methodically are needed to strengthen the monitoring capacities of the assessment teams. [the People’s Health Movement has prepared a multilingual, user-friendly Assessment Tool on the Right to Health to be used in such a training, as well as in the subsequent implementation of the assessment. See www.phmovement.org and follow the links to the Right to Health Campaign].
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
cschuftan@phmovement.org