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Geneva Academy
2 September 2019
Felix Kirchmeier has been named Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP), a new project of the Geneva Academy. He takes up this new role in addition to his position as Manager of Policy Studies at the Geneva Academy.
As GHRP Executive Director, he will notably lead the development of this new platform to anchor it in international Geneva. This includes liaising with diplomatic missions, United Nations (UN) experts, civil society actors and academia, identifying human rights issues needing coordination and a multi-stakeholder approach, hosting expert meetings and public conferences, including the flagship annual conference of the GHRP.
‘I look forward to contributing, via this platform, to constructive and impactful discussions on the work and functioning of Geneva-based human rights mechanisms and bodies and the challenges they face’ stresses Felix Kirchmeier.
‘At the moment, we will focus on the 2020 Review of the UN Treaty Bodies’ he explains.
This topic is at the origins of the GHRP, as the Geneva Academy led a global academic process to gather input to this important UN process.
‘We are now in the phase of introducing the recommendations that came out of this process into the intergovernmental debate at the UN General Assembly’.
‘Besides this, we will also look at the way Geneva-based UN human rights bodies weigh in on global debates such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), climate change or anti-corruption efforts. During the second half of 2020, we plan to look into the connectivity of the Geneva-based human rights system with regional human rights systems’ he adds.
The Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP) provides a neutral and dynamic forum of interaction in Geneva for all stakeholders in the field of human rights to debate topical issues and challenges related to the functioning of the Geneva-based human rights system. Relying on academic research and findings, it works to enable various actors to be better connected, break silos, and, hence, advance human rights.
As a ‘Mechanisms Lab’, the GHRP supports the international community to engineer solutions to ensure the sustainable functioning of the Geneva-based human rights mechanisms and bodies, allowing them to address human rights challenges effectively.
‘The Geneva Human Rights Platform is an innovative tool, open to all actors in Geneva and beyond, to genuinely address today’s major human rights challenges. As an academic institution, the Geneva Academy is the perfect entity to coordinate such project’ explains Marco Sassòli, Director of the Geneva Academy.
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This short course, which can be followed in Geneva or online, focuses on the specific issues that arise in times of armed conflict regarding the respect, protection and fulfilment of human rights. It addresses key issues like the applicability of human rights in times of armed conflict; the possibilities of restricting human rights under systems of limitations and derogations; and the extraterritorial application of human rights law.
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The Geneva Human Rights Platform contributes to this review process by providing expert input via different avenues, by facilitating dialogue on the review among various stakeholders, as well as by accompanying the development of a follow-up resolution to 68/268 in New York and in Geneva.
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We are a partner of the Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, housed at the University of Essex’s Human Rights Centre, which aims to map and analyse the human rights challenges and opportunities presented by the use of big data and associated technologies. It notably examines whether fundamental human rights concepts and approaches need to be updated and adapted to meet the new realities of the digital age.
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