From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National - Brookings

Benchmark 8 Support NHRIs to Integrate Internal Displacement into Their Work
can play an active and invaluable role in promoting and
working to ensure protection by the authorities of the
rights of IDPs. The national human rights institution in
Colombia is the Ombudsman’s Office (Defensoría del
Pueblo), which, under the 1991 Constitution, is mandated
to promote and defend the human rights of all
Colombians. The office is financially and administratively
autonomous from the government. 7
For more than a decade now, IDP issues have been a
high priority of the Ombudsman’s Office. Already
in 1999, when Francis Deng, Representative of the
Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally
Displaced Persons (RSG on IDPs), undertook a mission
to Colombia, the office was very actively engaged
on issues of internal displacement, having undertaken a
wide range of activities including the following:
—raising public awareness of IDP issues
through television and other public awareness
campaigns
—monitoring and reporting on the rights of
IDPs in terms of the Guiding Principles
—publishing, with the support of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a booklet
reproducing the Guiding Principles (which
had been introduced only in 1998) for broad
dissemination to officials as well as to IDPs
—issuing early warnings of displacement—a
critical function given that in Colombia at the
time an estimated 50 percent of displacements
were announced in advance of armed conflicts,
forcing entire communities from their homes
—developing a nation-wide early-warning capacity
with the support of the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP)
7 Government of Colombia, Constitución Política de
Colombia 1991, Article 282.
101
—reporting on the needs of specific groups of
IDPs, such as children
—providing advice on the development of
national laws and policies on internal displacement.
8 The Ombudsman’s Office has regional
offices throughout the country. That its staff
were undertaking all these activities on behalf
of IDPs (and human rights generally) in a climate
of severe personal insecurity—several
staff members had been targeted for attack and
even killed—was all the more impressive but
also tremendously disconcerting. 9
Currently, the Ombudsman’s Office maintains a focus
in its specialized thematic program, Assistance to
Displaced Persons. 10 The office investigates human
rights violations, hears individual complaints, carries
out public awareness campaigns, and issues early-warning
reports. 11 Lack of security in certain areas as well
as threats and attacks on ombudsman officials has hindered
the office’s ability to fully carry out its mandate. 12
Moreover, because the office is, as noted above, legally
8 UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the
Representative of the Secretary-General on Internally
Displaced Persons Submitted in Accordance with
Commission Resolution 1999/47—Addendum: Profiles
in Displacement: Follow-Up Mission to Colombia, E/
CN.4/2000/83/Add.1, 11 January 2000, paras. 15, 23,
25, 32, 60, 64, 67, 72, 91, and 115 (http://ap.ohchr.org/
documents/dpage_e.aspx?m=71).
9 Ibid., paras. 68 and 77.
10 Defensoría del Pueblo, “Atención a la población
desplazada,” (www.defensoria.org.co/red/?_item=1105&_
secc=11&ts=2).
11 Defensoría del Pueblo, Strategic Plan 2009–2012, (www.
defensoria.org.co/red/pe/pe.swf).
12 UNHCR, “UNHCR Briefing,” 22 May 2009 (www.
internal-displacement.org/8025708F004CE90B/(httpD
ocuments)/6D6272F5830AC54AC12575E100325008/$
file/UNHCR+briefing,+death+threats.pdf); Colombian
Caravana UK Lawyers Group and Lawyers Without
Borders, Colombia: The Legal Profession Still Under Attack—
Report of the Second International Lawyers’ Delegation to
Colombia, 25 May 2011 (www.colombiancaravana.org.uk/
reports/Caravana2010FinalReportENGLISH.pdf).