UN DAY 2020: Advancing Human Rights Advocacy During a Global Pandemic

The Covid-19 public health crisis threatens the global pursuit of human rights in two manners.  First, personnel from international and non-governmental organizations face travel restrictions that may impede their work in interviewing citizens and collecting data.  Most states have restricted travel for over six months and lifting them soon is unlikely.  Second, some governments with poor human rights records have taken advantage of border restrictions and internal lockdowns to target human rights advocates and political dissenters, at times assassinating them.  The combination of travel restrictions and opportunism by oppressive states threaten work of the global human rights community.

The first panelists will discuss the role of non-governmental organizations in the collection and publication of information on Human Rights, and how recent events have impacted such efforts.  The second panelists outline the UN Human Rights structure and its ability to respond to the challenges identified in the first panel.  The two themes are intertwined, as the UN depends on NGOs for a good deal of Human Rights monitoring while the UN sets the legal structure. We will be educated on the significant obstacles human rights workers face in the age of Covid-19.  More importantly, human rights practitioners have a voice here to identify emerging obstacles to human rights enforcement and the resources and decisions needed to overcome them. The conference includes two panel discussions and a virtual networking break.