Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In the emerging literature around human rights impact assessments, there is a growing discussion around what are some of the objectives or benefits of these particular tools. One that is recurring is about the ability of these processes to inform the rights holders, the workers o

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  As a matter of personal opinion, I think that giving more access to some of these other groups that have credibility and so on would probably do the country of Eritrea—not necessarily the government, but the country—a service in the sense that additional people seeing with their

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I found in discussions that if I led with, say the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or something, I would get a reaction about how the UN and the agencies that have created these international human rights standards were politicized and how they're dominated by certain great

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I have a couple of ideas. I think what Nevsun has done is responsive to some of the suggestions that have been made by this committee previously. Mr. Romaine has talked about ongoing reporting on these, so I think that keeping a dialogue with Nevsun about how they follow up on

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In terms of the local communities, in my initial trip, I had a meeting with all of the leaders from the five or six villages. Their traditional leader came, and we had a very long and interesting conversation. They talked a lot about the positives, the fact that members of their

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I can't comment on those because I wasn't part of the methodology, but I tend to give the UN and such organizations a great deal of deference in terms of their reporting and their methodologies. So I would not, sort of a priori, dismiss those in any sense. What I also note in t

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I met with national-level stakeholders—and I'll be vague about who they were—who did talk about concerns in some cases around the national service program. People I spoke with in a general sense about that, their concern didn't seem to be about the existence of a national servi

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  An average interview would be somewhere between half an hour and an hour. Group interviews are another thing. They are less likely to get at very specific individual issues, but they're good at getting a broad understanding of how different groups feel and sort of more to the col

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In most cases it was just myself and the individual or the group. There were some with the more, let's say, low-level or local workers where a translator was present. That was one of the community liaison officers. Sometimes, in order to explain context, I would have their manage

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. I have two remarks on that. It is a very valid question. In the absence of some sort of global mechanism that would fund this work so it could be completely independent and neutral, you come up against this. I get the same sorts of questions when I work with community grou

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There are two things you can do to try to preserve your independence, and as you mentioned, your reputation. One is by using internationally recognized methodologies. In the contractual arrangement and discussion we had it was very clear I would follow this methodology and I ex

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Indeed, I did. I actually obtained a copy of the Segen Construction company's collective agreement. It was in the local language. I had it translated and read through the 60-odd articles of that collective agreement. I had extensive conversations with Segen management, about how

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There are a couple of elements to it. One is the nature of the questions that you pose. In an interview, you will pose similar questions in a number of different ways at different times to ensure there's consistency within it. I tried to ask open questions to get someone to expl

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I do. Also, at the end of my last mission, I had a chance to speak with Government of Eritrea people and in very general broad strokes painted out some of the areas I intended to address and they seemed open. Obviously, Mr. Romaine can speak more to their intention around the fol