PPR's new article on the human rights-based approach to monitoring

Publish Date: 
Monday, September 22, 2014

A recurring theme in our discussions within the working group is how to ensure that the types of tools and techniques developed in this field really serve the interests of affected communities. In other words, what does a rights-based approach to monitoring itself look like? This question is explored in a new article titled ‘Reimagining rights-based accountability: community use of economic and social rights’, written by Chelsea Marshall, Kate Ward and Nicola Browne and published in the Volume 3(1) of the Irish Community Development Law Journal. The article discussed the work of Participation and the Practice of Rights (PPR), a Working Group member based in Northern Ireland, whose projects we've featured before on the site. One of the unique features of PPR’s work is their strong emphasis on putting skills that have traditionally been viewed as specialist in nature in the hands of community groups.

It’s a really interesting read, for two reasons. First, it offers a very clear distillation of the methodology that PPR uses in its work, peppered with examples from its campaigns on the rights to play, mental health, housing, and work. PPR supports affected community groups to conceptualize rights from their own experiences. The authors note that identifying the issues most relevant to the community first, then positioning them within the human rights framework, allows for a more nuanced, detailed and practical articulation of the components necessary to realize rights and also fosters greater ownership of rights. By contrast, a more specialist approach tends to start with international human rights standards, which can feel abstract and disconnected. They then work with the group to develop these issues into human rights indicators and benchmarks. The authors discuss the criteria PPR has found make for effective indicators in the context of their campaigns:

  • measurable through means accessible to the group;
  • true to the issue the group has identified;
  • strategically aligned to the objective of accountability, so that issues are named;
  • measure both outcome and process; and
  • reasonable and achievable.

Once indicators are identified, the group sets benchmarks—an important step that ‘prescribes power to communities to identify the speed of meaningful change’. Factors to consider in setting benchmarks include: the strength of the rights argument underpinning the issue; whether government has already made local legislative or policy commitments on the issue; the severity of the issue and time sensitivity for change.

As much as possible, the group monitors the indicators they've identified by gathering evidence from the experience of local communities (e.g. through survey-based research methods). The authors make an important point—one raised in our May online discussion—that often affected communities face constraints in meaningfully engaging with the formal state-based mechanisms designed to monitor progress. For this reason, PPR aims to ‘disrupt traditional power relationships’, by supporting communities to drive the agenda for change at a pace demonstrated by targeted, community-identified need. Further, grounding research in the community raises awareness and develops a constituency of support; measures the specific issues of interest; is independent and representative; and acts as an organizing tool.   

Second, the article offers some insightful reflections on how PPR’s approach helps to ‘structure’ engagement between rights holders and duty bearers. The authors also discuss the importance of transparency as a perquisite for being able to determine whether group’s concerns are prioritized and explain how some groups they’ve worked with used freedom of information laws, with sustained support from those familiar with the process, to access relevant government assessments and decisions—a topic we’ve also explored in our July online discussion.