A global observatory
on national policies on defenders’ protection

Protection International Research and training unit

Research and text by Enrique Eguren Fernández and María Martín Quintana

Protection of human rights defenders: Best practices and lessons learnt
Part II: Operational aspects of defenders’ protection

Protection International, 2011

Although the Defenders’ Units are all different, this second part uses a focus that maintains a broad overview that may be applied to any of the varieties of Unit that exist, organising the analysis around their principal objective, that of providing protection. Having examined the work of the different Units we believe that this mixed approach makes it easier to focus on the question of protection. We also highlight, whenever necessary, the differences that may be observed between them. In order to simplify the text we refer always to “protection programmes” or simply “programmes”. More detail is available in the annexes where the relevant texts are reproduced. 

You can download the contents from the links below:

Chapter 1: Overview of the Protection Response

Chapter 2: Inclusion in Protection Programmes

Chapter 3: Risk Analysis in Programmes for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders

Chapter 4: Protection Measures provided by the Programmes: Characteristics and Duration

Chapter 5: Catalogue of Available Protection Measures and Analysis

Chapter 6: The Overall Protection Response.