When deploying new technologies, tools or projects, it is important to assess the impact on a broad spectrum of internationally recognised human rights. This includes not only applicable human rights obligations but also other rules found in their mandates, internal policies, or agreements with states or partner organisations.
AWO is your trusted partner in translating this complexity into practical requirements. We help benchmark your activities against human rights requirements, and we suggest legal, technical, and organisational measures you can adopt to uphold human rights and protect the people you assist. We have collaborated with several UN agencies to review their activities and technologies in light of their human rights responsibilities and internationally recognized best practices.
Our approach to HRIA includes a four-step-process to provide organisations with comprehensive recommendations on how to address human rights impacts.
We start by understanding the relevant technology or tool, processes, and overall organisational context. This includes document review, interviews, and desk research to map data flows and stakeholders.
We identify applicable human rights norms and standards relevant to your specific context and translate them into benchmarks for the use case at hand.
We assess the new technology, tool or process against these benchmarks, considering the impact, l severity, attribution, and leverage of human rights impacts. We link these to legal, technical, and organisational gaps.
We document our findings and provide recommendations to address impacts, risks, and opportunities through technical, legal, and organisational measures. Our reports are clear and comprehensible, ensuring non-experts can understand their implications. We also provide contextual information so that you can prioritize compliance efforts and work with your partners to address identified gaps.
We start by understanding the relevant technology or tool, processes, and overall organisational context. This includes document review, interviews, and desk research to map data flows and stakeholders.
We identify applicable human rights norms and standards relevant to your specific context and translate them into benchmarks for the use case at hand.
We assess the new technology, tool or process against these benchmarks, considering the impact, l severity, attribution, and leverage of human rights impacts. We link these to legal, technical, and organisational gaps.
We document our findings and provide recommendations to address impacts, risks, and opportunities through technical, legal, and organisational measures. Our reports are clear and comprehensible, ensuring non-experts can understand their implications. We also provide contextual information so that you can prioritize compliance efforts and work with your partners to address identified gaps.
Throughout the process, we maintain close contact with you to ensure all relevant information is accurate and that our team fully understands the relevant day-to-day operations. This ensures our recommendations are grounded in your operational reality and are readily actionable.