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Police Training and International Human Rights Standards

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Abstract

Human rights training for police is one of the typical activities proposed for improving the human rights performance of police. This contribution explores basic didactical principles of effective human rights trainings for police, as well as some characteristics of police organizations and police culture that are relevant for understanding how to shape human rights trainings for police. From the practical perspective of a human rights trainer, the author discusses some basic competencies that police officers should have, what they should know about human rights, which skills they would need to acquire for successfully handling human rights principles in practical work, and which attitudes should underlie and support police work on the basis of a human rights approach.

Walter Suntinger is a Human Rights Consultant and Trainer in Vienna.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Sganga (2006), p. 72.

  2. 2.

    Suntinger (2005).

  3. 3.

    Fundamental Rights Agency (2013).

  4. 4.

    It is pertinent to remember that some subjectivity or relativity is inevitable in any, including academic, perspective. “Relativity ... is by definition inherent in every point of view, as a view taken from a particular point in social space”, Bourdieu (1989), p. 122.

  5. 5.

    http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/training (accessed 5 September 2016).

  6. 6.

    http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/training.html, (accessed 5 September 2016).

  7. 7.

    UN Doc. A/RES/66/137, 19 Dec 2011 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/education/training/UNDHREducationTraining.htm; for a critical review of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training see Gerber (2011).

  8. 8.

    This contribution uses education and training in an interchangeable way. Regularly, human rights education (HRE) is used an umbrella term, see Gerber (2011).

  9. 9.

    See Sganga (2006), p. 74.

  10. 10.

    GA res. 39/46, 10 December 1984, UN Doc. A/39/51 (1984).

  11. 11.

    International standards regularly use the term “law enforcement officials” as an umbrella term for “all officers of the law, whether appointed or elected, who exercise police powers, especially the powers of arrest or detention.” Commentary to Art 1 of the UN Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials. This contribution uses the term “Law Enforcement Official” and “Police” in an interchangeable way.

  12. 12.

    See e.g. Concluding observation on the second periodic report of Namibia, 1 February 2017, UN Doc. CAT/C/NAM/CO/2, see also Nowak and McArthur (2008), pp. 394–395.

  13. 13.

    GA res. 2200A (XXI), 16 December 1966, UN Doc. A/6316 (1966).

  14. 14.

    General Comment 20/1992, United Nations (2008a), p. 201 (para.10).

  15. 15.

    G.A. res. 2106 (XX), 21 December 1965, U.N. Doc. A/6014 (1966).

  16. 16.

    General Recommendation XIII/1993, United Nations (2008b), p. 276 (para.2).

  17. 17.

    GA res. 34/180 of 18 December 1979, UN Doc. A/34/46.

  18. 18.

    General Recommendation 19/1992, United Nations (2008b), p. 334 (para. 24 (b)). The general recommendation Nr. 19 on violence against women is currently in a process of being updated. The new draft circulated by the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2016) goes far beyond the 1992 version and reflects the involvement of thinking. States should “provide mandatory, recurrent and effective capacity-building, education and training for the judiciary, lawyers and law enforcement officers, including forensic medical personnel, legislators, health-care, education and social personnel, including that working with women in institutions such as residential care homes and prisons, to equip them to address gender-based violence against women adequately.” This should include: “i. The impact of gender stereotypes and unconscious bias, including their contribution to gender-based violence against women and inadequate responses in front of it, ii. The understanding of the situations of women, including those affected by intersectional discrimination, who are victims/survivors of gender-based violence, and ways to address them and eliminate factors, such as secondary victimization, that weaken women’s confidence in State institutions, and iii. Domestic legal provisions and institutions on gender-based violence against women, international standards and associated mechanisms and their responsibilities in this context. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/GC/19/Add.1 (para.15. (d)).

  19. 19.

    Resolution adopted by the Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, 1990.

  20. 20.

    For more on the training aspects of the BPUFF see Amnesty International (2015), pp.173 et seq.

  21. 21.

    Rec(2001)10, 19 September 2001.

  22. 22.

    26 November 1987, ETS 126.

  23. 23.

    European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (2015), pp. 20–21 (para. 59, 60).

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p.29 (para. 60, footnote 1).

  25. 25.

    Ibid., p.9 (para. 34).

  26. 26.

    Ibid., p.70 (para.77).

  27. 27.

    Ibid., p.77 (para. 28) and p.81 (para. 42).

  28. 28.

    Ibid., p.85 (para. 100).

  29. 29.

    Ibid., p.102, para. 25.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., p.102, para. 26.

  31. 31.

    See e.g. O’Neill (2004).

  32. 32.

    See e.g. Murdoch and Roche (2013).

  33. 33.

    OSCE (2006).

  34. 34.

    OSCE (2012)

  35. 35.

    OSCE (2012), p. 16.

  36. 36.

    Chan (2003), p. 304.

  37. 37.

    Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), pp. 104–105; for an interview with the highest police officer in Austria regarding this approach. http://www.bmi.gv.at/cms/BMI_OeffentlicheSicherheit/2011/03_04/files/POLIZEI_MACHT_MENSCHEN_RECHTE_II.pdf.

  38. 38.

    Carver and Handley (2016), p. 632.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 99.

  40. 40.

    See above under Sect. 13.2.2. and e.g. European Commission on Racism and Intolerance, General Policy Recommendation No.11, 29 June 2007, CRI(2007)39.

  41. 41.

    Art 28 European Code of Police Ethics (2001), Sganga (2006), p. 80.

  42. 42.

    It is a regular recommendation of the CAT Committee to states to “develop and apply a methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of educational and training programmes relating to the Convention and the Istanbul Protocol.” See e.g. UN Doc.CAT/C/LKA/CO/5 27 January 2017; OSCE (2006), p.43 et seq.

  43. 43.

    Equitas and OHCHR (2011).

  44. 44.

    See UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms, Principle 20.

  45. 45.

    For a classic book on adult learning see Knowles (1998), for an adult training handbook, Silberman (2006).

  46. 46.

    Sganga (2006), p. 81.

  47. 47.

    Silberman (2006), p. 21 et seq.

  48. 48.

    Silberman (2006), p. 41.

  49. 49.

    e.g. OSCE (2006), Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), United Nations (2000).

  50. 50.

    Rogers (1992).

  51. 51.

    Ibid., p. 829.

  52. 52.

    Equitas and OHCHR (2011), p. 2.

  53. 53.

    Tracey et al. (1995).

  54. 54.

    Suntinger (2012), p. 622.

  55. 55.

    Chan (2007), p. 324.

  56. 56.

    Ruess-Ianni and Ianni (2005), p. 297.

  57. 57.

    Ibidem.

  58. 58.

    Loftus (2010), p. 1.

  59. 59.

    Chan (2003).

  60. 60.

    Bourdieu (1989), p. 19.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., p. 17.

  62. 62.

    Chan (2003), p. 305.

  63. 63.

    Chan (2007), p. 343.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., p. 324.

  65. 65.

    Loftus (2010), p. 17.

  66. 66.

    For more on this see the very interesting study of human rights education for police in Germany of Günther Schicht, who explicitly situates human rights education in the context of a detailed description of police culture, Schicht (2007), pp. 29–46.

  67. 67.

    Fundamental Rights Agency (2013).

  68. 68.

    John Ruggie, former UN Special Rapporteur on Business and Human Rights, UN Doc A/HRC (Draft Guiding Principles).

  69. 69.

    It is interesting to note that this central importance of the concept of human dignity and, more generally, of humanistic principles is increasingly supported by empirical research. The work that prison researcher Alison Liebling has carried out on the quality of life in prison is one of the most advanced ones in this regard. She has made clear that values such as humane treatment, fairness and legitimacy among interviewed prisoners and staff are rated highly for assessing quality of life in prison, positively influencing the overall well-being and creating better and safer prison climate. Liebling (2011).

  70. 70.

    For different versions of the Golden Rule see Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), p. 35.

  71. 71.

    It has become standard to understanding obligations regarding human rights, using the trias of obligations: respect—protect—fulfill, in particular in the context of UN human rights treaties, notwithstanding the fact that the texts of the treaties might use different language; see Nowak (2003), pp. 48–51.

  72. 72.

    Nowak (2003), p. 1.

  73. 73.

    For reasons of simplicity and concrete relevance in a police context, the discussion here only deals with the positive obligation to protect.

  74. 74.

    Basic Principles of the Use of Force and Firemarms, preambular paragraph 1.

  75. 75.

    Regarding the importance of framing of issues for decision making see Tversky and Kahneman (1981).

  76. 76.

    On the importance of sense-making in an organizational perspective, as applied to police, see Chan (2007).

  77. 77.

    A good example for this is the development of German police law, see Schröder (2015), pp. 330–331.

  78. 78.

    Carver and Handley (2016), pp. 78–81 and 99.

  79. 79.

    For more on possible knowledge content see OSCE (2012), pp. 24 et seq., Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), p. 14, Crawshaw (2008).

  80. 80.

    Sganga (2006), pp. 82–83; Schicht (2007), p. 51, whose research found that international human rights law was practically absent in police training in Germany.

  81. 81.

    http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/skill?q=skill, (accessed 28 February 2017).

  82. 82.

    Nowak (2003), pp. 56–61.

  83. 83.

    For a detailed presentation of this approach, including case studies, see Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), Module 3, p. 69 et seq.

  84. 84.

    On the basis of experience in human rights education for police in Austria where this approach is systematically used for more than a decade, see Suntinger (2005).

  85. 85.

    Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), Module 6, p.161 et seq.

  86. 86.

    http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/attitude (accessed on 24 February 2017).

  87. 87.

    Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), p. 15.

  88. 88.

    See Module 5 of Fundamental Rights Agency (2013), p. 133 and Annex 4.

  89. 89.

    Chan (2003), p. 303.

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  1. Human Rights Consultant, Vienna, Austria

    Walter Suntinger

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  1. Brandenburg University of Applied Police Sciences, Oranienburg, Germany

    Ralf Alleweldt

  2. Brandenburg University of Applied Police Sciences, Oranienburg, Germany

    Guido Fickenscher

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Suntinger, W. (2018). Police Training and International Human Rights Standards. In: Alleweldt, R., Fickenscher, G. (eds) The Police and International Human Rights Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71339-7_13

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