A Human Rights-Based Approach - PLANET This is a four-minute video that demonstrates the impact of using (and not-using) fundamental principles when working with communities. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVPvzvTROLQ How could these principles apply to Vanuanui? Participation: You facilitate opportunities for all Vanuanuians to be involved in determining the priority human rights issues impacting on their community and deciding how to address these issues. You spend time learning about the cultural protocols and structures of the community and working with the community leaders to design equitable engagement processes. Link to rights: Climate change is identified as a priority issue. As part of understanding the full impact of climate change on the community, you facilitate discussions with Vanuanuians about their cultural relationship with the land and the sea, and how rising seas are impacting on this relationship. They also link climate change to issues of equity - who is most affected by climate change and how - and what human rights standards can be applied. Accountability: You spend time listening to understand how families who live close to the sea, think and feel about their food gardens being destroyed by salt water surges and graves being uncovered through erosion. You report back to them to show you have heard and you keep the community well informed about any developments as a result. Non-Discrimination: As you work with the Vanuanuians you ensure that the facilitation processes you use, and the decisions that are made by the community, do not discriminate against any group – even if you find that built-in inequities exist. This includes understanding who may be the rights holders, dutybearers or influencers in relation to climate change. When meeting with the sea-shore households, for example, you facilitate the opportunity for women and children to participate as well as the men, and ensuring the voices of the fishers are as important as those of the farmers. You also encourage people to understand that food, water and the right to earn a living are not just ‘needs’ but rather ‘fundamental human rights’ to be fulfilled. Empowerment: Vanuanui is experiencing increasing pressure, dysfunction and tension as a result of feeling powerless to address the increasing issues that it is facing. By request of the Community Council, appropriate personnel of your NHRI meet with Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to overview the situation and negotiate a discussion with community-chosen representatives. They discuss the impact of sea-level rises and seek to work together to find solutions. You may have a facilitative role at this meeting, to ensure that a human rights lens is used to describe the associated rights and responsibilities. Transformation: You work with the Vanuanui community over several years using a HRCLD approach. The community still faces many challenges, but there have been small wins. There has been, for example, a managed retreat of vulnerable graves into the hinterland. This has been difficult but the whole community has turned out to support and ancient rituals, that were beginning to be lost, have been brought alive. The biggest transformation is that Vanuanuians now understand when their human rights are violated and are able to use a human rights lens to identify the matters affecting them and mobilise the support they need. They were part of a national delegation, for example, at international discussions on the quality and quantity of climate finance to Oceania. APF HRCLD Guide 21