Title

People’s Stories Seminar: Human Rights Best Practices in COVID-19 Responses

Descriptions

The global pandemic and a series of related restrictions have magnified many of the already-existing public health inequalities and vulnerabilities in different segments of society. This inequality and marginalization affects not only in people’s access to the highest attainable health, but also in every sphere of human life. States have struggled to attend to the immediate and long-term challenges that come with the spread of the Coronavirus. The gap had to be filled by non-state actors.

In 2020, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR), in search for real examples in the field that can guide stakeholders can learn lessons from, started to collect best practice initiatives where non-state actors have filled the gap effectively. In particular, examples were sought where actors made effective interventions to protect economic, social and cultural rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups – which include existing groups and newly marginalized ones. These examples have been collected in the Crowdsourcing Database. Examples collected are those that either i) protect vulnerable groups that would have been left behind otherwise; ii) protect (a) human right(s) that were not addressed sufficiently; and/or iii) take innovative approach in addressing (an) affected human right(s).　The University of Tokyo’s International Law Training and Research Hub (UOTIL Hub) has partnered with the UN-OHCHR, and worked on the collection of best practices in Asia, and submitted a brief report to the UN-OHCHR on the analyses of collected examples from Asia, for its use at the Human Rights Council’s 46th session.

In the process of collecting best practice examples, the UOTIL Hub team was highly impressed by various creative, innovative approaches that have been taken by a wide range of actors. In following up on ten of the selected cases to learn more details about them, UOTIL Hub team felt that mere collection of best practices as data would not suffice to deliver human stories of those who have been fighting to provide much needed protection in the field.

This seminar aims to convey some of the real human stories from the Hub’s collection of practices, as well as the Hub team’s summary findings. This seminar aims to exhibit how non-state stakeholders came up with novel ways to lessen the health, economic, and social burdens of this unprecedented pandemic on the most vulnerable groups in society. It hopes to enrich debates on the value of using a human rights perspective in formulating frameworks for emergency response.

Date

11 June 2021 (Fri). 18:00~19:30

Venue

Zoom (Pre-registration required: https://bit.ly/3f7Z9v7)

Lecturers

Todd Howland (Chief, Development and Economic and Social Issues Branch, UN-Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights);
Chitra Massey (Team Leader, Development and Economic and Social Issues Branch, UN-OHCHR);
George Hodge (Methodology, Education and Training Section, UN-OHCHR);
Representatives from Door-to-door Education Initiative (Indonesia);
Representatives from Philippines Disaster Resilience Foundation (Philippines);
Raymond Andaya (PhD student, the University of Tokyo);
Chihiro Toya (PhD student, the University of Tokyo);
Lauren Power (Adjunct Professor, Temple University);
Satoko Haru (Staff, Research Center for Sustainable Peace, the University of Tokyo)

Moderators

Ai Kihara-Hunt (Associate Professor, Graduate Program on Human Security (HSP), the University of Tokyo);
Raymond Andaya (PhD student, the University of Tokyo);
Timothy Massie (Student, the University of Tokyo)

Language

English

Materials

To be distributed after registration if any.

Organizers

Graduate Program on Human Security (HSP), The University of Tokyo;
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR);
International Law Research and Training Hub, The University of Tokyo

Co-organizer

Institute of Advanced Global Studies (IAGS), The University of Tokyo
Research Center for Sustainable Peace (RCSP), Institute of Advanced Global Studies (IAGS), The University of Tokyo