Human Rights

In the German government’s guidelines “Preventing crises, overcoming conflicts, promoting peace”, human rights are listed as an essential basis for crisis prevention and peacebuilding. The National Security Strategy, the China Strategy and other guiding documents of the Federal Government also place respect for human rights at a central position. As shown in the recently adopted 15th Human Rights Report of the Federal Government, human rights are a cross-cutting task of state action. In the area of crisis prevention and peacebuilding, however, the question arises as to whether this claim is being met in a networked and operational manner with regard to the guidelines and beyond for the foreign policy actions of the Federal Government, or whether human rights policy is rather reflected in a multitude of individual measures that appear to make sense on their own, but are not operationally embedded in an overall approach to crisis prevention and peacebuilding. This applies in particular to the German government’s goal of counteracting the trend towards restricting civil society’s scope for action, which exists in many countries, and strengthening the protection of human rights defenders.

In the working group’s planned study entitled “Strengthening human rights and human rights monitoring as an integral part of crisis prevention and peacebuilding”, the Advisory Board will address the question of whether human rights and the results of country-specific monitoring are systematically taken into account in the strategic orientation of bilateral and multilateral relations and the promotion of individual measures by the German government – particularly in the area of crisis prevention and peacebuilding.