Sustainable post-crisis development: the need for a human rights approach — LSE Event

[00:00:00] Tim Forsyth: okay everybody [00:00:12] Speaker 2: thank you so much for coming it's a delight to see so many people here we appreciate you showing this interest in this important topic so um welcome to the llc for this hybrid event which is online and in person about post-crisis development and the need for human rights this is a wonderful collaboration between the llc department of international development and amnesty international now my name is tim forsyth i'm a professor of environment and development at the department of international development at the llc and what i'm going to do is introduce people give a rough idea of how long we're going to be and what the plan is afterwards so today we have uh some of very important speakers from amnesty international the the keynote address will be made by yasmin ahmed who will speak for something 15 or so minutes and then we're going to have a panel discussion by chiara liguori uh polly truscott and mithanry james mithanry james is from our department here at the llc they will speak on uh how robust evidence can inform the design implementation and evaluation of policies that advance human rights and improve development outcomes under real world conditions bringing together academic expertise and frontline experience the event will provide a platform for translating research into actionable policy and practice with a strong focus on ethics accountability and the lived realities of affected communities so as typical with these sorts of events we um will have uh social media presence and anybody who wants to talk about that the hashtag uh is hashtag lse events one word the event is being recorded and hopefully will be made available as a podcast subject to no technical difficulties so there will be a chance for you all to put questions to the speakers for the online watches you can submit your questions via the q a feature at the top left of your screen questions will be submitted to myself please let us know your name and affiliation and we're particularly keen to hear from our students and alumni because the department of international development has hundreds and hundreds of people who are doing excellent work now and we want to hear more with them so please do be in touch uh for those of you in the theater i will let you know when we will open the floor for questions if you can raise your hand and wait for the microphone then one of the assistants will come to you i will ask again that you provide a name and affiliation before you pose your question and i will try to get a mixture of questions from here and online the important news is is that after this event there will be a reception outside the reception will have wine soft drinks and nibbles so it's worth staying to the end and i hope you see us outside so now i'm about to hand over to yasmin ahmet and i will introduce the other speakers in more detail later on so yasmin is the senior director of regional human rights impact at amnesty international she's a member of a senior leadership team and she provides strategic direction too and has oversight of amnesty's regional directors and officers and she plays a pivotal role in strengthening the integration of regional perspectives across the work of the international secretariat and the wider amnesty international movement yasmin has has more than two decades of strategic leadership and expertise in human rights constitutional development and people-centered programming and management across different regions she has worked across different disciplines as well grassroots and policy and has a strong track record of connecting research into impact yasmin was the uk director of human rights watch where she drew on her experience as a lawyer and human rights advocate she worked at that time on various issues including arms sales for israel the protection of civilians in sudan she's also a member of a number of initiatives including the global strategy steering group which led to the development of human rights watchers uh strategy for the second part of the 2020s before that yasmin was the executive director of an organization that won an award called the rights and security international she's also been a public international lawyer with uk and australian governments as well as positions within the un including the international criminal tribunal for former yugoslavia and the serious crimes unit in timor leslie she started her career working with asylum seekers and refugees in australia so yasmin also has a master's and lrm in public international law from the university of london she's a qualified solicitor in england and wales and a barrister and solicitor in australia so everybody please welcome yasmin [00:06:02] Yasmin Ahmed: good evening uh thank you so much tim thank you to the my fellow panelists um and thank you for everybody here in person and those that are watching online as well this evening i always fear that these introductions sound me sound make me sound much better than i am so i hope i can live up to the introduction so tonight um we got a sort of quite a wide brief as to what we're going to speak about and as you say as you can see it's about sustainable post-crisis post-crisis development the need for a human rights approach and something that i have been thinking about i think for the last probably 10 years uh obviously we respond as human rights professionals whether i was working at human rights watch or amnesty or at other organizations we respond to the crisis we see crisis is emerging and there are many many crises that are emerging and new crises that your generation are going to have to deal with in a way that we never had to deal with crises that relate to the environment crises that are accelerated and accentuated by virtue of the kind of technologies that are now available and that are developing but what this all makes me think about is the crisis is just one point it's the point of eruption but actually what underlies the crisis are moments where we can in fact address the drivers of those crises and ensure that those crises do not continue and that has been in addition to documenting and advocating in response to the crisis whether that be in gaza or in sudan in the drc or in venezuela what we are working on as an international human rights community and as amnesty are the drivers of those conflicts which are multiple and many so this is what i want to speak a little bit about this evening so i'm going to start with you with with this evening and take you back to the 27th of october last year it was a horrific horrific day after 18 months of siege and when i talk about siege i'm talking about not just a siege that we heard about in the media but a siege that we saw gaining ground game gaining momentum every single day through satellite imagery through social media through testimonies of people on the ground and it was the siege in sudan of al fascia and on the 27th of october al fascia fell to the rapid support forces that is a it was a an incredibly difficult moment obviously for many of us but it was a horrific moment for the people in sudan in al fascia what we had seen over 18 months was the building the digging of trenches around the city of al fascia by the rsf building a trench around it which was then subsequently used to shoot people as they tried and kill people as they tried to escape the city it was used as a trench to hide and cover the mass killings and graves of people who died and what happened in al fascia was mass killings ethnic violence attacks on hospitals and wide spread human suffering including mass sexual violence but that usually as i said is a crisis that enters our memory on a date for me and for many the 27th of october is a moment that's seared in my mind it's a date it's a place it's a headline but let's be clear this crisis in darfur in sudan did not begin in october last year its roots stretch back decades it lies in atrocities that were pro that were never properly addressed in impunity for mass violations that endured and in political and economic grievances that accumulated over time in 2018 the brave brilliant and incredible sudanese people who are not just victims they are brave resilient incredible human beings took to the streets demanding dignity participation and accountability in their lives in their government for a brief moment there was an opportunity to address some of the conditions that were driving instability and to build a more inclusive political future and i i honestly can't imagine i mean the the bravery the brilliance of the sudanese people is just phenomenal that opportunity was missed the coup followed in 2021 civil war followed in 2023 and eventually al fascia fell in 2025 seen this way our fascia was not simply the result of dangers that were recognized but ignored it was also the result of opportunities that were recognized but not seized issues that for many decades were never addressed that at points two for me broader truth about conflict and crisis the signs of crisis the signs of crisis are often visible long long before violence erupts human rights defenders document abuses like we do at amnesty journalists investigate them researchers analyze them communities live with them and warn about where they are leading the challenge is very rarely simply a lack of information and so tonight i want to make a very simple argument many of today's crisis emerge where economic economic insecurity civic insecurity and justice insecurity may remain unaddressed for years not simply because no one sees them not because no one understands them but because other priorities but because other priorities repeatedly take precedence these three forms of insecurity reinforce one another when they deepen simultaneously institutions weaken trust erodes and violence becomes more likely just as importantly each has a human rights response human rights are not simply a response to crisis they are among the best tools we have for preventing it and responding to it in a long-term sustainable way so let me briefly talk about economic insecurity economic insecurity is often treated as a development issue alone but it's also a human rights issue one another when people lack access to basic basic services like health care education housing food and decent work their rights are not are not being realized when inequality grows and opportunity opportunity becomes concentrated among small elite often mired in corruption while their own prospects the population's prospects are at best stagnation and at worst rapidly depreciating trust in institutions begin to erode and the very fabric of society is frayed economic insecurity is not simply about poverty it's about exclusion it's about inequality and it's about whether people believe the economic and political system works for them we can see this dynamic clearly in eastern democratic republic of the congo drc the region as many of you will know is extraordinarily rich in natural resources including minerals that are increasingly central to the global economy every one of you who has a mobile phone if you want to just if it's in front of you just hold it up for one second your mobile phone every single one of you holds a piece of mineral that comes from mines in the drc every single one of you and likely comes from companies that are taking it from rwanda that have extracted unlawfully and trafficked minerals from the drc and we just produced a report as amnesty which showed an evidence not only what the un has said that these minerals are being taken illegally and trafficked from the drc to rwanda and companies are then buying these minerals from rwanda but we documented the severe human rights abuses that are being carried out against the miners the beatings the severe torture that is being carried out and each of us holds that in the technology that we use every single day yet for decades many communities in the drc have have continued to live with insecurity displacement poverty and violence at the same time armed groups such as the m23 which is backed by rwanda neighboring states such as rwanda and uganda political elites and international actors have all had their interests tied and directly or indirectly to the region's resources because we all hold those phones because of the billions and billions of dollars that are invested in and extracted from that industry this highlights for me an important lesson natural wealth does not automatically produce security we all know that you're all students of the lse investment does not automatically produce stability and resource extraction does not automatically produce development in fact where the extraction of resources is prioritized over accountable governance equitable development and rights protection it can deepen insecurity rather than reduce it the conflict in the drc continues and will likely continue not because i'm a prophet and i know that but because these conditions continue another really interesting case study for me is in relation to another african country or three at mali burkina faso and niger where military takeovers as many of you will know came wrapped up and are wrapped up in promises of sovereignty security and development and what we know those promises are about reclaiming sovereignty about african values but at the same time the human rights violations that are being committed are the same as those that were committed before we're still seeing enforced disappearances torture mass displacement we just produced a report on niger and in fact the thousands of people who have had to flee niger as a result of this those promises found an audience because many people had lost confidence that existing institutions were delivering meaningful economic change and then what happens is that that is manipulated and then we have authoritarian governments that take take control and further embed the human rights violations and economic inequalities that exist but something that's very important is economic insecurity is not only produced domestically or through extraction by foreign companies and states this is really really important and again i'm sure something that many of you at the lse are very aware of it's also shaped at the international level many developing countries it's not just about corruption they lose vast amounts to revenue through tax abuse illicit financial flows and international tax arrangements that allow wealth to be shifted beyond the of national authorities at the same time growing debt burdens constrain government's ability to invest in healthcare education social protection and other measures necessary to fulfill economic and social rights this creates a profound contradiction states are expected to deliver rights while operating in a global economic economic system that frequently deprives them of the resources needed to do so if we are serious about prevention that must change and my colleague polly will speak to you about the initiatives that are ongoing including the international tax treaty which are we are which the international community and is being led by developing countries to address this so i want to stop now and talk briefly and i think i've probably well over my time so i'm going to race through the rest of this talk about civic insecurity if economic insecurity concerns people's ability to live with dignity civic insecurity concerns their ability to participate in public life and influence decisions that shape their future at its heart civic insecurity is a crisis of accountability what we're seeing globally is a race of closing of civic space of a rise of authoritarian practice even in countries where we don't have solidified authoritarian rule we are seeing the closing of civic space we're seeing it in the uk we're seeing across europe democracy debate depends on more as we've seen than elections it depends on trusted institutions representative legislatures local government independent media universities trade unions civil society organizations and civic freedoms that allow them to function without fear taken together these institutions help society identify problems early manage disagreements peacefully and respond to grievances before they escalate when they are weakened captured or deliberately undermined insecurity deepens trusts arose polarization grows and people increasingly feel decisions are made about them rather than with them sudan again provides a really important example in 2018 uprising began with rising living costs that was in sudan 2018 but it quickly became much more than about economics people demanded dignity participation and accountability they like we want institutions that listen to them and represent them for a brief period there was hope then more responsive and democrat that more responsive and democratic institutions might ever might emerge yet the transition was derailed we know that shrinking civic space does does not strengthen release resilience it undermines it it weakens it when journalists researchers and human rights defenders are targeted society lose some of the earliest warning signs they are the vital fabric of our democratic space of our democratic freedoms of our democratic institutions and of our human rights lastly but not leastly i'm just but not least sorry i want to talk about justice insecurity economic insecurity weakens trust civic insecurity weakens legitimacy justice insecurity weakens accountability and the variability of societies to recover and replenish and overcome the instability when accountability weakens every other insecurity becomes easier to sustain justice insecurity is ultimately whether people believe violations will be addressed and whether they are addressed and whether whether people's people's people's rights are protected and importantly whether the cycle of impunity will endure we can see this clearly in myanma for years before the 2021 coup human rights organizations journalists and investigators documented grave crimes against the rohingya the warning signs were visible they were apparent there were red lights everywhere yet accountability remained elusive at the same time the efforts of survivors civil society organizations and human rights investor investigators ensured that there was evidence and that it was preserved and that international accountability could continue i have seen the same in relation to sudan and what is it's really interesting for me and i will end here i have my speech has gone on for a lot longer but i i appreciate i'm probably well out of time it's very interesting i recently got back from addis at a bar where myself and colleagues from amnesty sections across africa went to the african union and we're all advocating around the issue in sudan the conflict the conflict must end the drivers of the conflict including the states such as the uae uae that are providing weapons to the conflict all of that must end and there must be proper and immediate steps to protect civilians but what was very interesting is there are lots of discussions at the moment as many of you know in relation to stan around ceasefire whether we can and whether the us in particularly to secure a ceasefire and the predominant message that i was hearing as i we were going to meetings with diplomats with the au officials with this question whether we can attain peace or whether we can attain accountability and the idea was that they can't come together they can't sit together because the idea was well how will people come and create a ceasefire and sign a ceasefire when they feel that they're going to be held accountable for the crimes and what we said was it's not just our support for human rights and accountability it's history that will tell you every single time across every country continent on this globe that there has never ever ever been a secure and sustainable peace if accountability isn't the bedrock of that of that peace and of that ceasefire and of that peace deal it will never happen we can see that in relation to every conflict so i end here by saying i think in relation to the issues is that what we need to do in relation to the crisis and conflicts that we're addressing that you will be addressing as you become the people who will be on the front line or are already on the front line is that we absolutely need to deal with these three drivers of conflict and instability and i trust that you and the next generation and those that are doing it now will certainly continue that fight thank you [00:27:29] Speaker 2: okay well thank you very much yasmin um we will now move to the panel discussion uh and we i will we have three speakers i will introduce each as we go along because that's going to be clearer as to who who is saying what so we're going to start with chiara liguori who is a head of the rise of authoritarian practices hub at the amnesty international international secretariat this is a program that catalyzes new ideas and approaches to counter the rise of authoritarianism across the world chiara has long-standing experience in climate justice human rights social justice and development and development and has worked across policy advocacy and research for amnesty international oxham and the un in london mexico haiti and comoros so over to chiara thank you thank you so i have some questions for you um which is why is meaningful participation important to effective and sustainable development and what knowledge do activists and human right defenders bring to policy discussions [00:28:43] Speaker 4: thanks and lovely to be here and um among friends um of all different ages and backgrounds um so jasmine has sort of already mentioned why um all this um why public participation is a key ingredient of decision making but i just wanted to expand a bit more on this and i also want to start maybe from the understanding from the questioning the fact that um so many times um in uh institutions and governments and sometimes even ngos uh developments um crisis response humanitarian interventions and even climate action are seen mostly as technical issues while uh and so civil society grassroots organizations human rights defenders are sort of seen as if if we are in the best cases scenarios they're seen as not needed in the conversation or not that needed and in the worst case scenarios they're actually seen as obstacles that need to be removed but in reality these issues as jasmine said are not really technical are deeply political they talk about in most cases who has the power to make decisions and who bears the cost of those decisions and so for example when take the construction of a hydroelectric dam in indigenous lands this is not just a technical issue of infrastructure or energy developments but it's also a social issue of whose land is going to be sacrificed and and whose livelihoods and whose culture is going to be affected and so i'm talking about this example specifically because um it's really close to my heart the case of berta caceres in honduras she was an indigenous defender and that was opposing uh a the construction of a hydroelectric dam in uh in the in the indigenous territory uh in and and berta was accused of being opposed to development but in reality she was just questioning that paradigm of the paradigm of development a paradigm based on uh extraction as as you said as uh of of uh concentrating wealth among elites that causes these economic insecurities that jasmine mentions and so uh she was really uh trying to um bring those elements to the front and and open conversations and in contrast in contrast she was uh basically assassinated murdered and and um and this is uh obviously not an isolated case and the it's human rights defenders who try to speak up i mean human rights defenders try to open the doors to public to participate in decision processes but because of this shrinking space in many cases they can just protest protest is the last recourse and so they're met with with so much opposition and repression and they've been attacked and harassed and in honesty we every day we work on cases like this and and so but in reality what we don't understand is is that this participation should be really planned and organized because what uh um people that are at the front front so forefront of these decisions in development or climates are really those who understand those realities and i'm talking about indigenous peoples who have so much wealth and knowledge and indigenous knowledge and science that is so precious for example to climate action where they need to they bring those uh knowledge that has been based on the observation of the natural environment which is not seen as a resource to extract but rather something we really need to adapt and live and and constantly support each other and so this is uh brings some sort of even science that is it needs to be valued in uh in climate decision making but so many times it's not or people with disabilities have an important role to play as well in those decisions in shaping development and climate decisions that are actually inclusive but also meets their rights and their demands which otherwise could be could be neglected and youth and children also crucial actors that needs to be involved not just in a tokenistic way but also in a meaningful manner and in this role and um of as teams said i'm working now on authoritarian practices and so we are seeing all this shrinking civic space which is actually not just um a i would say it's a symptom of something bigger right it's a symptom of the system of economic and political power that is concentrating and is merging so much where these forces are sort of help you to manufacture enemies on the one hand and crush the sense in in in the process and so um these these spaces are shrinking but at the same time we constantly see um cases of resistance and valuable actors like berta but many others every day that are trying to fight this and remind us of the importance of participating in these processes for the common good thank you um quite a lot of information [00:34:17] Speaker 2: there i mean what what we're trying to get at today is like how can we build evidence-based um policy where the evidence is actually meaningful to the people who are vulnerable so can you say a few words about what can be learned from successful examples of community mobilization yeah um so i mean earlier i [00:34:40] Speaker 4: i i just we just spoke about this this shrinking space but but this doesn't mean that civic space sorry it doesn't mean that um resistance is not happening as i said and so community mobilization is it is something that it happens every day and what we can learn i think is i mean in my experience the what is um it's been successful many times is when there is a good combination of people when people act based on their interests at local level because their livelihoods have been affected or their local environment is threatened but this this also combines with a general more broader interest so for example again in the context of climate resistance against fossil fuels projects is quite a good one because it really combines concerns from local communities that are affected locally by those environmental impacts and also the concerns around climate and greenhouse gas emissions that these projects produce and so um one good example of this is the stop the the campaign to stop the east africa crude oil pipeline which is a development that runs across tanzania and uganda you might have you might know about this case and the campaigners i really like this campaign because it really brings together um local communities with um um civil society organization in these countries but also worldwide and it also looks at and so it it combines also different tactics like um evidence gathering and monitoring about the situation and the impacts and local level with um with uh protesting in in in these countries with advocacy towards different institutions and strategic litigation across multiple jurisdictions so it looks also who are the financiers of these projects which banks are behind it how can we stop where the money is coming from and how can we stop the tap and also who are the companies involved and so we have total energy with headquartered in france the and so there has been litigation uh looking at this and other companies also now in litigation here in the uk so um yeah just to conclude i think um this for me is a good example of uh in general that community mobilizations that brings together all these different tactics and combine local uh concerns with international solidarity are are sort of quite inspiring thank you um i'm going to ask a last [00:37:25] Speaker 2: question if i can although possibly you said a few words about it already which is how can institutions engage constructively with people advocating for change for example how can climate and development policy better reflect the realities of affected communities [00:37:44] Speaker 4: so um so um so yeah we have already mentioned a few things but uh um i think uh it's um it's important meaningful participation let's let's look at the elements and ingredients of meaningful participation which um states and uh needs to to implement so the first one i would say is uh um is access to information you communities can't can't really participate if uh if they're not fully informed and if this information is not made fully accessible uh so it's uh it's about um understanding so this accessibility for example needs to happen through um language issues so translation in local languages or formats so for example in in the context of high level of illiteracy should happen through visual and manners and media rather than writing or also taking into account how disabled people with disability can access this information and so on and and uh and also for example having goods um um needs impact needs assessment based on human rights and environments this is also understanding the problem and making the information accessible to people about what the impacts really are and then the second aspect is uh um is that participation needs to be actively facilitated so um so so so it really states need to put in in in place measures to look at what are the barriers for participation of people and what um for example are the gender norms that prevents women to taking the the floor in in community discussions are there uh issues that um of again the people with disability that needs to be accommodated and just adjusted to and so what what they can do to make this a good environment and facilitate this participation and and finally um the issue of uh really um consultation should not be in participation should not be a tick boxing exercise so many times it's just something that needs to happen uh and to to fill a form right but in reality to make meaningful participation it should be done through in good faith and people and governments and institutions that do it really need to gather and harvest all the information that comes through and respond in the most effective and detailed manner showing that they have taken those concerns into account now it might seem that this is very nice in theory and in practice how do we do this but i i really take encouragement of uh i would say that the normative word is not dead and that the there are still uh important conventions that are there and people try to enforce them and and i'm thinking thinking for example about these treaties that are specific about the procedural access to information participation and remedy in environmental matters the aros convention under the u.n economic commission and the escazu agreement in latin america this casu agreement was only adopted in 2018 so it's quite recent and i've really seen how groups and civil society has catalyzed around those those those agreements have been putting together campaigns to to get the implementation and ratification at national level and so they're still using this because from the international level these aspects really translates can translate into effective policies with the support and work of communities and effective rights holders thank you kiara again a good good full [00:41:44] Speaker 2: answer there thank you so much we will now move on to our second uh speaker uh of the panel member who is dr mivanwe james and mivanwe is an assistant professor in international development and humanitarian emergencies here at the lsc her work examines the politics of humanitarian intervention in context in context of conflict and displacement and she especially focuses on the eastern democratic republic of congo she uses ethnographic and historical methods and has conducted research on how humanitarians negotiate their access with armed groups and has experience of locally hired humanitarians and security management structures in the inequality and aid as well as a contested legitimacy of medical research now i will ask you a first question which is that you've done a lot of work um as a researcher inside a live vaccine trial during an active ebola outbreak which to me sounds pretty scary and this is a good example of what we're trying to get to today which is how does meaningful evidence lead towards policy and you were invited to do this research this is very impressive by the congolese government the medical agency working with the congolese government vaccine scientists and also medicine font frontier the humanitarian group so what does research actually look like in that kind of situation how does it inform policy and practice and how what did you learn and how did [00:43:21] Speaker 5: this differ from policy makers understandings great yeah big question so i just want to start by highlighting that this was during the last ebola epidemic in the eastern drc there is currently a live epidemic that began in may as many of you are probably aware um which hopefully will make these insights um sort of more relevant to to to that um i think the first thing to mention is when there is this kind of crisis and ebola outbreak which makes the headlines which leads to concern all around the world new things are made possible this means a lot of money is suddenly mobilized quickly there's opportunities for new actors to arrive and do things that perhaps weren't considered the norm beforehand and one of the things that is made possible is different kinds of research and this is where we see a kind of interesting research environment arrive we have lots of bioscientists who want to kind of arrive in the epidemic and do research that you can only do when there is a live a boner epidemic you also have a range of different humanitarian actors global health actors both national and international and everybody has their own priorities about what needs to be done and crucially what needs to be known in order to do it properly very different ideas of what counts as evidence and how that evidence should be informing policy in real time and in the midst of all of that often in these kind of acute crisis moments you have opportunities for critical social science because people realize um during an ebola outbreak in somewhere like the eastern drc that this humanitarian crisis is far from technical that's deeply political that it's going on in an ongoing conflict situation as we heard about from yasmin um and so there there are the opportunities for social scientists to arrive and do research embedded with policy makers and ngos so that was my kind of entry into this so what does research look like in that situation well it comes down to really contested issues like what evidence is useful um and also whose priorities should that research reflect so on the one hand you're asked to do a series of things which we might simplify as quick wins things that hopefully can inform policy in real time using the kind of tools that social scientists learn quite early on perhaps that's observations interviews challenging logics and assumptions of the different kind of aid infrastructures that are being set up quite quickly so in the kind of work i did a lot of that was about countering rumors trying to understand rumors in order to correct them and hopefully to facilitate acceptance this is the kind of what's often given on the tin the policy brief the job description but i think the real work of critical social science in that kind of acute crisis moment is to link it back to what we're talking about today to really highlight and produce knowledge about how acute crisis situations both reflect and exacerbate those longer term crises of political exclusion broader questions around social justice and i think that is really really clear in the area where i work in eastern drc because ebola has always been seen as deeply political and it interacted with these longer standing crises in really fundamental ways as all of this money is pumped into ebola responses in the region that just highlights the lack of international attention and funding that goes to for instance the series of civilian massacres that have been taking place in that region since 2013. so if you want to understand trust and rumors you're probably going to need to situate ebola in that that context of massacres where people are asking very legitimate questions like why was all this money and attention and resources and response infrastructure mobilized for ebola rather than the fact that we are being killed indiscriminately um another kind of key reason is to think about the civic insecurity that yasmin talked about during the last ebola epidemic elections were postponed in ebola affected regions this was interpreted as a kind of way of quelling a stronghold of opposition and led to mass protests it also meant that the ebola response became understood as part of a continued kind of government oppression in the area so i suppose really what research looked like in that kind of situation is balancing the requirements to produce quite quick insights that might be operationally useful to an aid infrastructure as it's already been set up but also to produce evidence that questions some of the logics and assumptions of the response that's taking place [00:48:10] Speaker 2: thank you for that i mean you you mentioned the rumors and skepticism i'll just ask you a bit more about that if i can it's interesting to me because it's like a public understanding of science sort of question which is basically that many health authorities see rumors and skepticism as things to be managed or corrected now your research says there's more to it than that what do you think interventionists and governments get wrong about trust during an output outbreak response and what would it mean to take communities down seriously rather than just dispelling them um well i think it reflects back to what we've been [00:48:46] Speaker 5: talking about here about what meaningful participation might look like but also it means linking trust back not to a kind of lack of information or understanding but back to those three types of broader insecurity that people have been experiencing for a long time so the way i usually summarize this is that there are three ways i saw that people understand rumors in a context of crisis the first way is really prevalent in kind of scientific communities and that's the idea that rumors and resistance and mistrust is the result of a lack of information or a lack of understanding so there your job is to try and explain give better information with the idea that this will resolve things people will understand and therefore logically accept the way that a response or humanitarian response is set up um then you have the second school of thought who are the kind of anthropologists and historians who say that grossly misinterprets what rumors and mistrust are in fact in order to understand mistrust or rumors you need to put them in a political and historical context and if you do that they make sense rumors about ebola just being a business well perhaps we should look back to the experience that eastern drc has with international intervention we've heard about the long-term mineral extraction we've heard about the way that a range of international actors have been profiting off the riches of eastern drc so the second school of thought would say well a lot of these concerns and mistrust makes sense they're a reflection of political anxieties based on historical experience i like the third school of thought which is okay yes rumors mistrust are a reflection of uh historical experiences but also perhaps there's some truth to them now here i'm not a conspiracy theorist but what i mean is that they may be pointing to some truth so i'll give a really kind of concrete example many people in eastern drc say that ebola is just a business opportunity it is just a way for foreigners and national elites to make lots of money now the first school of thought would say ah that's lack of information we need to explain that everyone's here to help the second school of thought would say ah well this is a region that's had a really rough history we need to understand this as historical mistrust reworked in the current day the third school of thought would say well there is a lot of money in the ebola response and it has formed a deeply unequal political economy in the region say well there are lots of ways that elites have been benefiting off that political economy and we have seen protests with frontline workers not being paid so i think when we ask what kind of evidence is produced in crisis we need to ask whose kind of realities and priorities are our research questions prioritizing and hopefully the job of critical social science should be to situate that crisis moment in these longer histories of political exclusion and social justice the kind of work that amnesty does thank you very much mavanway that's [00:51:51] Speaker 2: that's a very good full answer lots of interesting work there now i'm going to turn quickly to our last speaker on the panel today who is polly truscott now polly is amnesty international's uk lead on international affairs she has many years of experience of international human rights law and humanitarian work including with the un office for human rights the organization for security and the cooperation in europe and the international rescue committee based in london new york the balkans afghanistan and pakistan polly's areas of expertise include human rights centered uk foreign policy and united nations human rights mechanisms over to you polly thank you um i mean maybe i can explain a [00:52:38] Tim Forsyth: little bit about my particular focus area which is um amnesty uk research and action uh is is focused on improving the human rights situation not only abroad but in the uk but my particular role is on uh research and action and monitoring and advocating for uk foreign policy to be more human rights compliant um and that we do have a particular set of priorities at amnesty uk around crises particularly occupy uh occupy palestinian territory but also sudan um particularly around promotion protection of civic space and also around strengthening international justice mechanisms so can i ask you some questions [00:53:23] Speaker 2: very simple terms this is the sort of thing we ask students but what makes a policy generally human [00:53:28] Tim Forsyth: rights centered um i think we've heard nearly all the answers already here so my job's easy um i mean there's a plethora of guidance on what a human rights based approach is or a human rights consistent approach compliant approach uh i have preference terminology but i won't go into here um so there's a lot of guidance out there but i think there is and there's no single definition of what a human rights based approach is um but i think there is broad consensus around four human rights principles and they've come up repeatedly in the discussion today uh the first is very much around consistency with international standards so in the uk context we'll be saying uk foreign policy context in my particular circumstance is the uk's policy consistent with its international human rights obligations and i would go a step further and say also is its policy in any way going to undermine the recipient country's international human rights obligations which may be different because that country may have higher standards the second principle is non-discrimination and equity and that's also come up a lot today those who face the biggest barriers to realizing their human rights should be prioritized for action um and this is having a particular impact now in the uk as there are significant official development uh assistance cuts made um to fund defense and also the foreign commonwealth and development offices budget and staffing has been drastically cut by by a third uh we understand um both those processes have not completed yet um they will be by the end of this year well oda would be by the air cuts by the end of next year um that's going to affect you know prior deep re-prioritization of your policies and your uh programs and we would say that should reach the most marginalized minoritized um the third one again has come up repeatedly and that is around meaningful participation this is the third human rights principle and and that's that people involved in decisions uh that affect their rights should be involved that sorry people should be involved in the decisions that affect their their rights um and what we would say also is that the uk in government in supporting that principle um means including older persons uh in the development of the new un convention on the rights of older persons it means including victims and survivors in the development of the new un convention on crimes against humanity but it also means that when you're developing a strategy in a particular country situation do talk to the human rights defenders in the country um as as well um again points you made uh about access to information impact assessments and um breaking down those barriers making sure you're actually reaching the most excludes so they're part of that process um if i have time i'll come back to anecdotes about how we've not been consulted in that process the fourth principle is is accountability again repeatedly come up today and and that means monitoring how people's rights are being affected and ensuring remedies for any harm and that's putting in the place mechanisms for that whether that's parliamentary oversight of uk foreign policy whether that's access to international justice mechanisms um i'll speed up otherwise i'm going to take too long but i have great examples of that also um and then i think what i want to do is just add a fifth so um uk human rights commissions and others often talk about the panel principles which is what i've just spoken about p for participation a for accountability n for non-discrimination they squeeze in an e for empowerment which i think is very much part of participation um and the l is for legality and i've mentioned those sort of four principles already but a fifth one for foreign policy is you've just got to practice what you preach so the uk cannot be looking to present itself as an international champion for human rights based approaches abroad and tackling human rights concerns abroad if it's not also making efforts to address its problems at home whether that's restrictions on right to protest now in the uk um or um ensuring that it develops a new business human rights and environment act um those are the sense thank you i'm going to i'm going to just [00:58:02] Speaker 2: sort of compress the last point that we have to ask just to to because you've already asked answered some of these uh but i want to give you another chance to say i mean you talked a lot about how you try to get policies adopted and you talk about how you try to influence actors but i'm going to make it more specific which is in the uk at the moment there's so much talk about leaving the european convention of the human rights and what is amnesty trying to do about that what do you think is possible and what does [00:58:34] Tim Forsyth: amnesty uk hope to achieve next on the european convention of human rights um uh it's not particularly my area because it's about domestic implementation here in the uk but of course as the uk in the previous government was looking to with with uh leave withdraw from the european convention of human rights or make noises about doing that um and certainly that does not first of all it's important because it's a last uh recourse to justice for many people here in the uk on on accessing their rights and remedies for them but also it doesn't send a great message also to those abroad if the uk is looking to withdraw from its international commitments um that it is doing so it also does isn't likely to encourage that elsewhere i mean the uk has uh sorry amnesty uk has on that regard done an awful lot of work which i've not been a part of but it's it's very much around raising awareness in the uk of the advantages of being a party to the european convention and often that is not getting enough um there's not enough understanding in the public so the hillsborough law was very much around justice for those in the hillsborough disaster which perhaps is not what comes out first when people talk about the problems of being a part of the european convention um and um your second point was [01:00:00] Speaker 2: on amnesty uk whether what we've got coming up next coming up maybe i mean um we've got a raft [01:00:08] Tim Forsyth: of work that we're doing now i think what i want to do is just very briefly touch on the way that we are able to influence and do policy action so often with uk government if there's an open door there then all we're doing really is just presenting our information and um make it relying on the fact that we're already seen as credible and our research is accurate and that we have done the due diligence in consulting with those effective meaningfully um then perhaps only just providing that information means that we're going is going to have the influence that we need and there are many examples of that um one would be what a crisis point of view would be our research brilliant research done by our colleagues on um the supply of jet fuel to myanmar um we knew that the un security council was blocked in taking action to address protection of civilians in myanmar but um uh because we had credible information because we've done our vessels tracking because we had satellite imagery because our information we've spoken to corporations who are providing jet fuel because we've talked to security forces involved in the companies that were using this the problem was that the jet fuel supply was you being used to conduct airstrikes that were killing civilians uh disproportionately excessive use of force um and um luckily the uk was open to doing that so the fact we had a report resulted in the suspension of targeted sanctions against some companies that almost immediately um but i just need to say another example which is and then i will go into the positive bit um is um where there isn't an open door where the uk is in fact an obstacle to making progress and i think i've got to give the example of our work um around apartheid in occupied palestinian territory and the genocide in the gaza strip um we produced our part just after human rights what stood in in 2022 um which named it apartheid and that was before obviously october 2023 hamas attacks uh we'd already identified the underlying uh abuses and violations that were going on um and then it's been a massive effort in all ways producing research to keep the debates alive providing briefings to parliament parliament um raising awareness publicly creating the human stories so there's no alienation of the the groups that we're talking about um and just to say i think because there was so much blockage um in other parts internationally we focused on where we could make a difference and so that was very much most recently around the banning of import of settlement goods to the uk and uh thanks to the brilliant work of my colleagues in our advocacy and parliamentary team and our researchers at the international secretariat who were able to provide the evidence we now had on this 8th of september ed milliband announcing that they're going to ban settlement goods so the next part of our work is to hold their feet to the fire and uh make sure that they deliver on that and that the way they do about it is meaningful that it has the right scope has the right oversight mechanisms i just wanted very small because it came up and i promised i would talk about the global tax treaty um uh so by the end of next year the un general assembly is going to adopt um a new un framework convention on international tax corporation that will provide um a more uh equitable tax uh system um and this has been very much brought by the global south states believing that they've been excluded from the tax governance process through the oecd and um uh hopefully this this international cooperation will tackle some of the problems of of siphoning off of of profits into tax havens i just wanted to give you some just i know i'm i just want to give you some um examples of why this matters um so countries at the moment are estimated losing an estimated 348 billion annually um to companies shifting profits into tax havens and the uk is of that using 17 billion so if we were able to attack if we were able to close down some of these tax havens there would be a number there'll be significant resources that we could spend on public services and [01:04:30] Speaker 2: realising human rights both abroad and at home thank you polly that certainly is food for thought okay so we uh a little bit after time but let's um proceed now we have some questions online and from the audience um do we if you want to ask a question please raise your hand and then the uh people will come to you uh i suggest we just take them one by one at the moment and then we'll uh maybe accelerate as we go along so first of all um why don't we have uh the woman in blue there and afterwards we'll move up to um the woman with the white top and the black laptop halfway up the [01:05:15] Speaker 6: slide thank you so much for your insights so far tonight um my question is about um youth advocacy [01:05:23] Speaker 2: in universities so can i ask if you say your name and affiliation please of course my name is tiana [01:05:29] Speaker 6: and i'm from university de montreal um in montreal canada um and my question is how young people facing erosions within their academic institutions can fight against that and if there are lessons from previous um youth movements that we can take into the current uh present and if there are things that we can do to make sure that these movements injure into the future i don't know how we're going to [01:05:55] Speaker 2: answer that i mean does something anyone member of the panel want to answer that i think for the sake of efficiency we'll we'll go with the person who wants to run with the ball and the two people will [01:06:04] Yasmin Ahmed: do that but not all four yeah so anybody want to answer that i mean i'm not an expert in this space um but i think i mean look i i can't probably give you the answer in terms of what is going to be meaningful sustainable change but all i can say is i mean we've seen the the movement um currently um on issues around israel palestine uh i mean the the we've seen that across i mean obviously we've seen the crackdown um in terms of of what's happened to uni university students both in terms of their education and just their ability to express themselves freedom of association and assembly but i think it's without a doubt um it's part of the the the ecosystem that has brought about some of the changes that we've seen in relation to the situation the genocide and the ongoing apartheid and the fact that we have as um as polly mentioned we've seen not just the uk but we've seen now a number of states move in relation to settlement goods um and make other policy changes and so i think that although i can't say how they can be sustained i think they have been absolutely critical both in the uk in europe in the us and yes it's meant people have had to make incredible sacrifices i mean it's phenomenal some of the sacrifices people have had to make but what you're doing is you as youth have put a spotlight on society we've just had some reports that have come out one in the us and elsewhere looking at the crackdown particularly in relation to palestinian protests in the us and there will be one in in europe coming out as well work that's ongoing i also want to mention the youth protests that have been happening across the globe in relation to economic insecurity and other issues around countries that we've mentioned from nepal to sirlanka to many other countries unfortunately what we've seen is the crackdown on so many of those protests and we uh polly and i were just discussing a report that's coming out on kenya um and the youth protests in kenya in the way that they are were a response to the economic and civil situation in kenya but the crackdown that has happened as a result of that but a report that will be coming out from amnesty shortly and not just the report but we're and which is relating to youth movement one of i was just actually reviewing a report today that will be coming out on this and my primary question in relation to a number of other issues around fiscal policies and so on and so forth was what are the what's the broader uh strategy theory of change around this and i was so uh happy to see one of my teams saying to me it's deeply embedded in providing and working and facilitating these youth movements and the movements that are happening in civil society we as amnesty are just a part of that providing something for that so i can't answer your question around what in particular um you can do but all i can say is and in relation to climate obviously youth movements in universities have been critical the work that you have done is sustained work and it needs to continue and i'm thank we thank you for the work you're doing and amnesty certainly sees you as a vital partner in what we're doing in the change we're trying to achieve thank you let's let's move [01:09:32] Speaker 2: on to the the question up there uh so the woman with her hand in the air then i'm going to take one from the online please prepare other questions we want to get through a few before the end um hi good evening [01:09:47] Speaker 7: um uh thanks for your lovely your name and affiliation yeah discussion i'm kartika i'm from the department of government and i'm doing the conflict studies program here so um i just had a question about like since you uh since um yasmin mentioned uh our generation and obviously like there are new emerging theaters of confrontation with the state and um other entities uh that come as a part of you know our generation like you know social media and ai and stuff like that so i was just wondering how you might discuss that in terms of um human rights and humanitarian action as well as uh from a policy kind of perspective like how would you recommend that like should governments kind of uh have a more active role to play in in these theaters and how um how they might do that um according to you who wants to answer [01:10:48] Yasmin Ahmed: that one i'm happy to but i don't know i think if i understood correctly it was about how the the issues of ai and social media and how we would see what how how how we as a human rights organization community think that we need to respond to those i'll be brief because i've been told that my answers are too long and i know i speak too long but i mean i think first of first of all the key thing around artificial intelligence um what we've seen is uh now obviously it's a big thing that all the like tech companies are coming out and saying jesus we've got an ai agent that could potentially take over the world and god we need some regulation but don't worry we'll regulate ourselves so we would just say that's bs just to say very frankly yeah they're a stakeholder in any regulatory process for sure because they know the technology they understand the technology but no no this must be regulated by governments and going back to the participatory model it must involve participation from stakeholders that are not only governments because there are cyber attacks but all people that are impacted by ai and we know that ai there are existential challenges but it's not just existential are bots going to take over and kill us all it's also the use of ai that turbo charges abuses we saw in gaza look at the use of ai in terms of targeting the use of ai in terms of which is happening now in russia in sudan and elsewhere in terms of technology and targeting and so on and so forth so this needs to be properly regulated and there's no question about it and it's now imperative for governments to do that and i think it's we're certainly as amnesty at the forefront of calling for that regulation i think in terms of social media we've done a couple of reports and and kiara's been very involved in this in looking at um in particularly in terms of the uh around authoritarian practices and the um the impact of social media but particularly dis in particularly disinformation and our calls for again for regulation but also for tech companies to have a responsibility for the kinds of harms that are happening um and the problem is like we all know is that tech companies have an economic model it's well and good to say yes you need people to moderate and you need this and that but underlying this all of the algorithms everything is an economic model which is about producing things and get more people to see things and so on and so forth so i think we actually need to challenge that um fundamentally as well thank you [01:13:30] Speaker 2: jasmine okay i'm going to take a question online from ian mckenzie who's a member of a local amnesty group in reading and ian's question is in what specific ways do infringements of human rights impinge on economic welfare and development and how can groups like amnesty effectively play a role in tackling this and maybe i can ask someone else not um yeah yeah let's go with the right to food if i if i may um as [01:14:00] Tim Forsyth: an amnesty uk member um so again my get out clause is that this is about the domestic situation in the uk um but i think it's a really interesting piece of work that amnesty has been doing um with others and um let me just pull it up because it's not so familiar to me there is it um so obviously there'll be multiple crises of a different kind with with uh covid with um uh uh uh uh uh brexit and another crisis that have an impact on those who are the most marginalized and the poorest here in the uk and one of the things that has been a problem is obviously that their rights aren't effectively protected here in the uk um so their incomes aren't enough and the prices are rising rapidly and supplies dwindling in some areas and food is often the first thing to go you're going to cut back on paying for food because you're going to pay your rent um and uh so we as amnesty are now arguing with many others for a new framework law in the uk here to protect the right to food um and uh a right to food commission was established a year ago led by ian burn mp and will be launching its report next week calling for this uh framework uh law to protect the right to food um now in examples of kenya in 2010 when they adopted the constitution recognizing and realizing economic social culture rights um they didn't actually set up an effective system of governance to enable that to be implemented so one of the things that this commission will also do is look at the fragmentation of governance um at the moment so that there's no one person looking at it from the experience of the person uh who is is whose right to food is not being realized because there are various departments that aren't talking to each other and understanding it from the one perspective um so uh the commission i think has got important work to do in creating this right to food and just the human rights based approach to that is that uh the international covenant on economic social and culture rights has very good comments on how you interpret rights and one of them on general comment 12 is around how you break down what is uh your right your access to right so it's it's um uh you know your right to food needs to be physically and financially accessible it needs to be available adequate and sustainable now when we look at the uk and the commission for human rights uh sorry the the food the uh the right to food commission it's finding the recommendations are based on having spoken to 2700 community voices with over 60 legal experts consultations around the country it's a very bottom-up approach and the finding is that it's around financially accessible accessibility is the problem why people aren't accessing food so hopefully in the next phase of our work we'll be able to be raising awareness in parliament supporting those who are calling for this towards great incorporation of economic social culture rights here in the uk [01:17:22] Speaker 2: that's a wonderful answer thank you so much okay i've got one more question here online and then i'm going to take some more from the audience so this is from i hope i'm pronouncing your name correctly sydney ridge who is a master's students in human rights at the lse and the question is uh to what extent do we hold larger institutions like the imf accountable for their role in driving economic and civic in security to satisfy the agenda of banks investment firms and other financial organizations even as we rely on their position to sustain western or global north economic security and i'm going to ask kiara to [01:18:00] Speaker 4: answer that one i think this is a great question actually and uh jasmine you were alluding to some of these issues earlier right when uh because uh inequality is it's not just driven uh at country level it's also driven by these uh um institutions and so what do we do about that and just now today yes today's no anyway today yes monday started the meetings of the annual meetings of the imf and the world bank rights so in thailand and so these are spaces where civil society is is really active in holding these uh organizations to account and also throughout the year and uh one particularly um and so i think amnesty has joined forces with others as well at least in in in advocacy in really calling for a review of this uh multilateral um financial system because uh organizations like this world bank and imf they are really actually based on this unequal system and one example is going back to the tax issue right at the moment the tax um system is based mostly with this around revolves around the system based on the oecd and so are the wealthiest countries that basically makes the rule and and oversees them while the u.n tax convention would really democratize the system and and make this uh and approaches uh much more widespread and and responding to the needs of different countries so making that every country with their different uh needs and and situations as a voice in this in these spaces at the u.n level don't know if you want to add anything [01:19:44] Speaker 2: let's not add anything um i'm gonna ask some more i'll get some more questions from that side so the woman with the white uh top with hand in the air thank you um hi i'm anna i did a masters in human rights at lse a few years ago and now work in human rights in a [01:19:55] Speaker 8: large business um based in the uk so i spend a lot of time thinking about corporate abuses of human rights as kind of alluded to earlier as well and so i think about this a lot and i suppose my question is given issues such as like the opacity of supply chains and like primacy of shareholder interests tick box approaches to compliance lack of ability to engage with stakeholders meaningfully etc like i'd be interested to hear what any of you would suggest is like a material meaningful way to curtail corporate abuses of human rights because in my experience thus far it doesn't seem to be a clear answer yeah [01:20:56] Yasmin Ahmed: i mean i think like something that we've been calling for in the uk is calling on the government to have human rights and environmental due diligence laws um that place a requirement a legal requirement and in fact put the onus on corporations to ensure that there are no abuses in their supply chain and that hold them liable if they are so at the moment we don't have strong due diligence laws in the uk obviously there is the csdd in europe but that's also been diluted um you know quite considerably so i think one is there has to be strong laws to ensure that and the laws have to be structured in such a way that there is a requirement i think obviously there have also been um uh civil liability claims against corporations um in different jurisdictions for their for human rights harms that they have caused and i think that continues to be um very important i think the other thing as you know that there's probably know there's a um uh the current negotiations around the convention that would see uh corporations have direct responsibilities under international law at the moment they don't it's states who have responsibilities and states have responsibilities to regulate uh through due due diligence laws and other such things so i think i mean certainly given the role of corporations and often corporations are much more powerful than states and certainly increasingly they're a state capture by corporations i think that there's a necessity for us as an international community to grapple with the means of holding corporations responsible whether that's through state regulation or direct responsibility or criminal and civil liability but i think it's increasingly important thank you for [01:22:48] Speaker 2: that we we are running out of time but i'll take uh let's say two questions so i'm going to uh suggest the person right at the back uh with the arm up in the air thank you thank you very much my name is felix [01:23:02] Speaker 9: i'm a youth advocate for marginalized street children in ghana my question is uh in a post-crisis setting so how can policy makers ensure that recovery programs that they uh prescribe address the underlying the inequalities that existed before rather than just simply building systems that will previously exclude vulnerable uh populations or marginalized people thank you who wants to do that i can have a go um i [01:23:30] Speaker 5: think the short answer would be meaningful and broad political inclusion in the discussions about what post-crisis means and looks like if you take the example of eastern drc the kind of peace accord of 2003 there were huge criticisms there about all the kind of political concessions that were made in order to make sure that everybody was happy that the deal that came out including the way that the kind of electoral democracy was set up afterwards um and everyone has pointed out that since 2003 which was meant to be the end of the crisis it was the end of the war we've actually seen much more uh sort of violence actually um and so the post-war period has had more violence uh than was expected and i think it really showed the kind of the contradiction you need to try and be really inclusive and have as much meaningful political participation as possible people who have been perhaps at war for a very long time have very different interests and desires but at the same time making too many concessions might lead to something which isn't going to be sustainable at all so short answer is i wish on you but i think that contradiction is at the heart of it [01:24:39] Speaker 2: thank you mivan we now we we will unfortunately have to disappoint a lot of people but we'll take one more question how about from the middle um the man with the white t-shirt would be a hand in the [01:24:48] Speaker 10: yeah where i'm pointing thank you wow thank you for my for your remarks i do appreciate it all the panelists and yes thank you um i wanted to ask i want to ask about when these reports are being written about human rights or about human-centric foreign policy approach i kind of want to understand who is the target audience because it sounds like governments aren't listening and the mass media isn't reporting on this as permanently as they should so i really want to know who you're thinking of besides the people who are obviously facing the problems and i appreciate the short answer from everyone thank you so [01:25:27] Yasmin Ahmed: much that's a million dollar question my friend that i ask every single one of my teams every day is what is your theory of change because you're a hundred percent right it's not really a long answer your the answer is exactly right is that there used to be a world in which documenting abuses and exposing abuses was sufficient in and of itself and that relied on a power dynamic because we usually had albeit inconsistent states who were kind of on our side from a values perspective that had requisite leverage over other states in the world who were able to use that leverage to get them to do something usually that's kind of how it would happen but everything's changed now because a the states that were on our side will be inconsistently no longer have the leverage in a lot of circumstances and now they're operating in a very different political environment in which things are much more transactional and they're much more vulnerable so they're not willing to put human rights at the center as much and so you're absolutely right but then on the other side of the spectrum we're seeing the closing of civic space in so many instances so your other kind of mode of change would be getting the people you know you're not talking to government policy makers as much but are you getting the people to rise up but the problem we have in so many instances is that the people who are rising up we're seeing increasing repression so i think what what i'm saying to my teams is we have to think constantly not nothing is closed completely but the way we think about change needs to change and be dynamic in response to the world and it is harder than ever because we're seeing the rise of authoritarian practices everywhere including in states where there's not cemented authoritarians in power um and yeah we're seeing the closing of the civic space we're seeing avenues for accountability closing look at the icc yeah just yesterday whatever day it was the icc now is is under more attack than it was ever before and so i think it is a really difficult environment and we are having to be more more strategic and more thoughtful i mean i was just looking at as i said the report from kenya came to my desk there was a report on el salvador which is really interesting bukele you know an authoritarian leader with all the playbooks he's got 80 percent approval rating in el salvador and that's because people are like well at least we feel kind of secure so how do we respond to that where there's grave human rights violations and we have a leader who has a lot of popularity so i think you're right and some of it is going to be around continuing to document harms because just like in the philippines we never imagined duterte would be at the icc let's fingers crossed the icc continues but that will happen but yeah we and it comes back to your point about student act activism none of this is going to succeed without all of us as an ecosystem working together it's not just amnesty no if it was just us where it's over because it is a human rights ecosystem that we all rely on one another for that change [01:28:38] Speaker 2: so yeah okay i think that's an excellent point to end i don't want to keep anybody from the reception [01:28:55] Speaker ?: so yeah yeah i think that's a great point to end i think that's something that's going to happen so yeah i think that's a great point to end i think it's a great point to end i think it's a great point so yeah i think it's a great point to end i think it's a great point to end i think it's a great point