Background
The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) provides police-related
assistance to governments and civil society of participating States, co-operating closely with
other OSCE structures and international organizations. In 2012, police-related activities were
conducted in the following programmatic areas:
Human Rights Education
The Moscow Document 29 makes it clear that competent authorities are responsible for
designing effective human rights-related curricula and courses for police. In 2012, ODIHR
developed the Guidelines on Human Rights Education for Law Enforcement Officials 30 to
support systemic and effective human rights education for police and other law enforcement
personnel. The document was prepared on the basis of broad consultations involving police
trainers, university lecturers, representatives of national human rights institutions and civil
society organizations, as well as experts involved in the design and delivery of educational
curricula for law enforcement officials. The guidelines promote the objectives of the United
Nation’s World Programme for Human Rights Education and its Second Phase (2010 to
2014), which focuses on implementing human rights training programmes for teachers and
educators, civil servants, law enforcement officials and military personnel.
The guidelines present approaches to planning or implementing human rights education for
law enforcement personnel related to six key structural areas: the human rights-based
approach to human rights education; core competencies; curricula; training and learning
processes; evaluation; and professional development and support of educational personnel.
The guidelines also offer a list of key materials to assist in planning, implementing and
evaluating human rights education for law enforcement officials.
On 10-11 December 2012, the guidelines were presented at the round table “Human Rights
Education for Law Enforcement Officials in the OSCE Area: Existing Good Practice and
Remaining Challenges” held in Istanbul. The event, organized jointly by ODIHR, the
TNTD/SPMU, and the Turkish National Police, brought together police representatives from
16 participating States, independent police trainers, representatives of police academies, and
members of civil society involved in human rights education for law enforcement officials.
The police play a fundamental role in protecting and promoting the right to assemble
peacefully as part of their work to maintain public order. This remains a challenge in a
number of OSCE participating States. The changing nature of assemblies, new technologies
and social media, have all brought about new dynamics and complexities from a policing
perspective. Large street protests in the context of the economic crisis, and the handling
thereof by the police, only serve to stress the importance of police training on policing
assemblies in a human rights compliant fashion. In 2012, ODIHR, jointly with the
TNTD/SPMU, started the development of the Human Rights Training Guide to Policing
Assemblies, with the objective of strengthening the policing of assemblies in compliance with
human rights standards in OSCE participating States. The main target audiences are law
enforcement officials in management and command positions as well as police trainers and
police education policymakers. The training guide will consist of a handbook and a training
manual. The handbook is envisioned as a resource both for police training and, as a
reference on assemblies and public order management, in the daily work of law enforcement
officials. The training manual will accompany the handbook and serve as a hands-on tool for
the trainers in the development and delivery of the training.
29
30
148
CSCE, Document of the Moscow Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSCE, Moscow, 3
October 1991.
OSCE/ODIHR, Guidelines on Human Rights Education for Law Enforcement Officials, Warsaw, 2012, at:
http://www.osce.org/odihr/93968
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