36. The third working group dealt with the issue of intellectual property rights of the pharmaceutical
industry, the extent to which patients benefit from generic drugs, the effect of copyright on
businesses and human rights, and the advantages and disadvantages of generic drugs for companies.
37. Each group has made recommendations, the most important of which are: to reduce the problems
related to business and human rights by enhancing practices with regard to the United Nations
Guiding Principles on this matter, to induce identifying and sharing good practices in the business
and human rights field, as well as the duty of businesses to not violate the principles on the
fundamental rights set out in the International Labor Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work, as well as the fundamental rights stipulated in the two International
Covenants on Civil and Political Rights, and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, to which the
Kingdom of Bahrain acceded to, regardless of the size of the business, its sector, its ownership, or
the nature of its activity.
38. In order to enrich the scientific and knowledge aspects of human rights issues of the employees of
the public sector and the public through holding seminars, events, and training programs related
to the promotion and protection of human rights, the NIHR held a two-day workshop in cooperation
with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office entitled, “Fair trial guarantees”. It dealt with
a number of themes, the most important are: the international system and its mechanisms for
protecting human rights, fair trial guarantees in accordance with international standards, and the
relevant regional and international agreements on fair trial guarantees, along with pre-trial, trial,
and post-trial rights.
39. In performing the Memorandum of Understanding between the NIHR and the Asia Pacific Forum
(APF), which aims to implement programs on human rights capacity building and qualifying of
assistants, the NIHR organized a program on “Human Rights Capacity Building in Monitoring
and Documentation”. The program consisted of two parts, one part was theoretical, through a twoweek distance-training course, and the other part was a two-day practical training course, where
practical application on the preparation of monitoring reports for human rights monitoring and
documentation processes, to reach the best monitoring methods.
40.
Through this program, several themes on human rights monitoring and documentation
mechanism were addressed. In addition, the experiences of the institutions participating in the
program on human rights monitoring and documentation processes were presented, and the
general concepts of the monitoring process, in particular the monitoring of reform and
rehabilitation centers and the electoral process, were explained. The staff of the General Secretariat
of the Complaints (Ombudsman), the Prisoners and Detainees Rights Commission, as well as the
Secretariat of the NIHR participated in this program.
41. The NIHR organized a training course entitled “Analysis and Interpretation Skills for Harmonizing
National Legislation with International Standards of Human Rights”. The training course
addressed a number of important topics, the most important are: general concepts of analysis and
interpretation and their importance in developing national legislation, in addition to applications of
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