Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

Building on ongoing work across all of its programmes, and following a recommendation from the 2006 Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting on Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions, in 2007 the ODIHR established a Focal Point for Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions.

The Focal Point closely monitors the situation of human rights defenders, identifies issues of concern, and seeks to promote and protect their interests.

The Focal Point's work is carried out in close co-operation and consultation with other international organizations, in particular the office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, including the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders. Situations where human rights defenders are at risk are discussed among all three organizations and interventions are designed in close co-ordination.

Capacity-building projects for human rights defenders

The Focal Point aims at increasing capacity of human rights defenders to improve their knowledge of human rights standards, advocacy, monitoring and strategy formulation skills as well as general capacity to protect and promote human rights.

The ODIHR, in co-operation with the OSCE Mission to Moldova, is conducting a pilot project to train human rights defenders in international standards on freedom of assembly and build their capacity to monitor and report on freedom of assembly in Moldova. It is a continuation of the work undertaken by the ODIHR in the field of freedom of assembly and draws upon the OSCE/ODIHR Guidelines on Freedom of Peaceful Assembly published in March 2007.