Guide to International Human Rights Mechanisms - Brookings

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A number of mechanisms with less formal criteria for intervention may become involved in
cases involving large numbers of IDPs. These include the Representative of the Secretary-
General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons (page 60), the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights (page 115), the Special Rapporteur of the African
Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Displaced
Persons (page 161), and the European Commissioner for Human Rights (page 193). For
their part, the World Bank (page 147), Inter-American Development Bank (page 181), Asian
Development Bank (page 189) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (page
201) require complaints to involve more than one person and tend to formulate remedies that
affect entire communities.
In addition, large-scale rights violations are most appropriate for NGO interventions in the quasilegislative
fora described in this guide, including the sessions of the Human Rights Council (page
51), the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and its various working
groups (page 54), the Commission on the Status of Women (page 112), the International Labour
Organization (page 136), the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (page 156),
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (page 171), the Inter-American Commission
of Women (page 180), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Human
Dimension Meetings (page 211).
These violations are also most appropriate for inclusion in the “shadow reports” (i.e. in comprehensive
NGO reports mirroring the states’ own periodic reports) to the treaty bodies and the regional
commissions on human rights in Africa and the Americas.
DISCRIMINATION
Thematic Roadmap
Discrimination is an over-arching human rights issue that can arise in any of the “phases” of displacement
(i.e. time of flight, the period after losing one’s home, the period of rehabilitation and
reintegration). It is a violation of human rights and can also be closely linked to the violation of
other human rights. For example, persons are frequently denied the rights to life, physical integrity,
food, water, housing, access to work, political participation and many others due to discriminatory
policies, attitudes or beliefs.
Where there is such a linkage, the number of human rights mechanisms available to address a particular
case increases. For example, although the right to food cannot be asserted in complaints to mechanisms
that are exclusively focused on civil and political rights, such as the Human Rights Committee,
it may become admissible if food is denied due to racial or other bias. Similarly, bodies that specifically
focus on discrimination, such as the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, can be
invoked to deal with cases that mix discrimination with other rights abuses.
Overall, IDPs must benefit from the same human rights as others, without discrimination on the
basis of race, color, sex, language, religion or belief, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or
Guide to International Human Rights Mechanisms
for Internally Displaced Persons and their Advocates 2