IRCT in Geneva
Geneva is the second largest UN site with a major focus on hosting the UN’s human rights and humanitarian related work. Therefore, the IRCT established a liaison office in Geneva to engage with the relevant UN mechanisms and support our global members in accessing them.
The IRCT Geneva office has 2 main activities:
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Support to IRCT members
The IRCT Geneva Liaison Office provides a wide range of services to our members including practical guidance on lobbying UN human rights mechanisms; support with developing background information for UN lobbying; and direct support with effectively influencing the relevant decision makers in the different UN mechanisms.
The office currently supports our members to engage with the following mechanisms: UN Committee Against Torture (CAT); the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT); the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR); the UN Human Rights Council, its Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism and the Special Rapporteur on Torture
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Advocacy
The Geneva office also advocates to advance key thematic areas of general relevance to the IRCT such as the right to rehabilitation and access to torture documentation. This is done in close collaboration with other NGOs working against torture.
We continuously work to ensure that the process and working methods of relevant UN human rights mechanisms are transparent and promote direct participation by organisations not present in Geneva, such as through the use of IT technology and webcasting.
