In 2018, Protection International launched its latest publication from the series on Collective Protection: Collective Protection of Human Rights Defenders ǀ A collective approach to the right to defend human rights. This publication is the flagship item of our global campaign #CommunitiesareHRDs.

This publication aims to contribute to a shift in current prevailing narratives on the protection of human rights defenders. For protection to be effective, sustainable and reach a greater number of human rights defenders, we shift towards a more collective mindset.

The publication also provides ideas of key measures and actions that should be taken into account when developing collective protection strategies with communities or groups of HRDs.

“We need to rethink and expand current HRDs protection mechanisms so that the protection of HRDs is provided both individually and collectively.”

Read the publication in English, Spanish and French.

In 2017, Protection International collaborated with its partner Pensamiento y Acción Social (PAS) to publish a report on collective protection in Colombia: Collective protection on human rights defenders of the right to land and territory in Colombia: Conceptual developments and methodological challenges.

This report studies the challenges in the implementation of collective protection measures in rural-based communities by the country’s protection mechanism. Based on a Constitutional Court ruling, the Interior Ministry of Colombia adopted Resolution 1085 of August 2015, which includes the first protocol in its kind to implement a Plan for Collective Protection of communities or organisations at risk.

Key findings:

1. Collective protection goes beyond protecting individual community leaders considered to be most at risk.
2. The communities’ need for an organisational structure was directly related to the level of risk that they were facing at the time.
3. We could establish that there was an almost symbiotic relationship between the grassroots organisation that protects the interests and rights of the communities and the communities who protect their organisation.
4. The repercussions the definition of the collective subject (community vs grassroots organisation) has on the protection strategies and measures to be adopted, since social subjects need to be recognised as both subjects and agents of protection.