the romanian institute for human rights

7/28/2019 The Romanian Institute for Human Rights

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The Romanian Institute for Human Rights (IRDO), a national, independent

institution, is invested under its constitutive law with powers of research, training,dissemination of information and consultancy. The law also guarantees

independence and equidistance, in conformity with the criteria established for this

type of institutions by the United Nations and the Council of Europe, whichrecommends that all democratic countries should establish such institutions.

Ever since the creation of the Institute, the United Nations Center for Human

Rights in Geneva and the Romanian Government signed an agreement on theimplementation of a Technical Assistance Programme for several years. On

conclusion of the Programme, in the final evaluation, it was appreciated as "the

first comprehensive country programme of advisory services and technicalassistance in the field of human rights" conducted by the Human Rights Center.

Even though initially assigned only the role of 'addressee' of some assistanceactivities, IRDO assumed the role of partner and co-organizer and was regarded assuch by the UN Center in Geneva from the very beginning.

The Programme consisted of several series of courses, adapted to the specific

needs of the various professional groups. These included the cycles "Human Rights

in the Administration of Justice", Teaching and Learning Human Rights", "TheMedia and Human Rights", "Human Rights and the Issue of Minorities",

"Prevention and Resolution of Conflicts between Citizens and the LocalAdministration", "Rights of the Child", etc.

The target of these cycles of courses were judges, prosecutors, lawyers, membersof the Police staff and the staff of penitentiaries, staff members of primary and

secondary schools, staff members of the local and the central administration,representatives of the media and of NGOs taking interest in the field of human

rights, etc.

As is appreciated in the Evaluation Report by the UN Commission on Human

Rights, "IRDO became in actual fact a central actor, with regard both to assistance

in the organization of seminars and to the production and dissemination ofinformation material. Indeed - the UN experts further wrote - in many ways IRDO

has been the Centre's local partner, acting as unofficial contact between the Centreand Government officials and agencies, supplying logistical support, issuing

invitations to participants, recruiting local experts, translating and distributingprogramme materials, providing premises and interpretation facilities, and so on. ...


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[It] is clear that, without its support, the programme would not have advanced aseffectively as has been the case".

The proportion of the training-for-trainers activities grew every year, the Instituteembarking on the intensive organization of courses at zone and later at countylevel.

With the activity of the Romanian Institute for Human Rights, the norms and thestandards laid down in the international treaties on human rights, as well as thejurisprudence of the international tribunals in the field have been a permanent

preoccupation in terms of its specific powers, consisting of research, training,information and consultancy.

The reports that have been published render a detailed picture of these activities as

a whole, most of which were organized by the Institute in partnership withParliament of Romania, the Government and Ministries with specific powers, aswell as non-governmental organizations taking interest in the field.

We shall only briefly mention a few of them, namely, the research activities

devoted to the international instruments and the rights they include, published inthe quarterly "Drepturile Omului" (Human Rights) and/or in the framework of

scientific events, as well as the training-for-trainers courses organized for variousprofessional categories. We shall also mention the volume "Jurisprudena Curii

europene a drepturilor omului" (Jurisprudence of the European Court of Human

Rights), by Vincent Berger, former Chief Registrar of the Court of Strasbourg, ofwhich five Romanian editions have been published so far, each printed onlyseveral months after its French counterpart; the volume "Din jurisprudena Curii

europene a drepturilor omului - Cazuri privind Romnia" (Jurisprudence of theEuropean Court of Human Rights - Cases regarding Romania), as well as a work

grouping together the international regulations where Romania is a party, in twovolumes, now at the sixth edition.

A working instrument indispensable to those who are the first, by their very

professional activity, to implement the international standards and norms in thefield of human rights and a cornerstone to the holders of these rights, the first

volume includes the ensemble of the regulations with universal applicability,translated into Romanian, from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the

documents having a general character to the Conventions on specific rights and theprotection of certain categories of persons.


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Referring to the second volume, devoted to the regional treaties, we shall mention,

beside the European Convention on Human Rights and its Additional Protocols,the chapters dealing with the prevention of torture, public healthcare, education,

culture, protection of the environment, movement of persons, data protection,

protection of minorities, the European Social Charter and, particularly, thosedevoted to such fields as the civil law, the criminal law, the public law andbioethics.

As far as IRDO's activity on human rights education is concerned, an internationalacknowledgement is the fact that the National Commission on Human Rights

beside the French Prime-Minister awarded the Institute an Honourable Mention in

1998 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration ofHuman Rights. It is also worth mentioning that IRDO has been elected in various

structures of several international bodies devoted to the promotion and the

protection of human rights.

the romanian institute for human rights

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