Resolutionsförslag från fondstyrelsen Underlag till styrelsemöte 1-2 maj 1997

The International Council

recalling Decision 15 of the 1993 ICM, which requested the IEC to:

(a) issue new guidelines on policies and procedures for AI’s relief work

(b) consider establishing a budget line “for developing AI work in providing
financial assistance in instances which would have a strategic
advantage in furthering AI’s aims, but which cannot properly be treated
as part of AI’s relief program”

(c) consider “making some provision in AI’s general budget for contributing
towards those areas of relief which have a major preventive element”

(d) ensure that a review of the practice of certain aspects of the new
elements of relief policy be carried out in time for the 1997 ICM

noting the new relief guidelines and procedures issued in August 1995;

welcoming the increased attention given in recent years to relief initiatives with a
major preventive component;

DECIDES that initiatives on behalf of human rights defenders with a predominant preventive
element be funded through AI’s relief budget (see explanatory note b);

DECIDES that AI provide financial assistance (other than relief) with a lesser preventive element
to human rights defenders (see explanatory note c);

DECIDES that AI provide financial assistance (other than relief) to initiatives that will further
AI’s aims in areas such as standard-setting and support for the work of human rights defenders
(see explanatory note d);

FURTHER DECIDES that the IEC review the practice of certain aspects of the new elements
of relief policy and procedures, and include the issue of whether a wider program of “direct
assistance” should be established with other forms of financial assistance.

ASKS the IEC to report on the outcome of the review to the 1999 ICM


EXPLANATORY NOTES

The gradations between purely preventive relief and direct assistance to initiatives which
further AI’s aims are essentially fourfold:

a) Purely preventive relief involves providing assistance which will remove a potential
human rights abuse victim from danger and thus prevent the abuse from occurring, e.g.,
providing the means whereby a human rights defender at risk of becoming an EJE victim
could leave the country or area of danger. This has been a regular practice of the Relief
Program for many years and no changes are suggested in this resolution.

b) Relief with a predominant preventive element is different in that it leaves the human
rights defender - the beneficiary - still at work and thus still at risk, but seeks to provide
him with a sufficient level of protection to avoid the potential human rights abuse from
occurring. In such cases we have provided human rights defenders with cell phones or rental
cars so that they might remain in contact with associates who could warn them of the imminent
danger and assist them in avoiding it and/or so that they would be less easily identified when
travelling. While AI’s predominant concern here is the prevention of a human rights abuse
against the individual, the effect could be seen as assisting the human rights defender in his
work. A few relief projects of this sort have been undertaken by the Relief Program in the
last years, and it is suggested they continue to be funded through AI’s relief budget, but with
the priority on purely preventive relief.

c) Assistance to human rights defenders with a lesser preventive element also includes our
concerns for the prevention of human rights abuses but to a lesser degree than b). In this
situation, a human rights defender providing information to AI and other human rights
organizations might be given a computer enabling him/her to communicate by e-mail, a
far safer means of communication than phone or fax; the goal is to assist the human rights
defender in his work while minimizing the risks he faces doing so. Such assistance should
be studied in the overall issue of direct assistance.

d) Direct assistance to initiatives which further AI’s aims differs from c) in that it has no
immediate preventive element in terms of the beneficiary, who is not himself at risk. Rather,
such aid seeks to assist those involved in standard setting (with regard to the death penalty,
for instance) or in other human rights work of direct relevance to our mandate so that others
in future will be less likely to be victims of abuses. Such work has not been funded to date,
but the Decision 15 of the 1993 ICM and Decision 52 of the 1991 ICM both called for the
establishment of some mechanism whereby we could, for instance, provide legal aid in death
penalty test cases. This resolution decides that AI provide assistance to initiatives that will
further AI’s aims and that such assistance be studied in the overall issue of direct assistance.