There are 43 Special Rapporteurs investigating and reporting for the UN on human rights issues across the world. For a special World Service series, Gemma Mortensen went behind the scenes for a unique insight into their crucial work

In 1967, the endemic human rights violations in Apartheid South Africa compelled the UN to take an unusual step. The Commission on Human Rights, an inter-governmental body, appointed a group of independent experts to investigate the situation and bring reality to the corridors of power. It was not envisaged at the time that this would lay the foundations for a network of human rights experts, advising and reporting on different human rights issues across the world. Today, 43 men and women report on issues as diverse as torture, the sale of children, arbitrary detention, the right to food and the human rights situation in countries of particular concern.

The role of the Rapporteurs is to join the dots across continents and show how small groups of people are protesting against similar phenomena. In isolation, their voices would be marginal, but pieced together they warn of larger problems.

In a special investigation for BBC World Service, I was able to follow three of these key figures on whom so many people depend for representation. I went with Hina Jilani, appointed by Kofi Annan to look at the situation of human rights defenders across the world, to the World Social Forum in Karachi, Pakistan; I accompanied Doudou Diene, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, on a mission to the Russian Federation to explore the rise of the far right; and I met Yakin Erturk, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, to investigate the impact of legalised prostitution in the Netherlands.

Demonstrations have been heavily controlled in Pakistan and Jilani wanted to see if the right to peaceful protest was being respected at the World Social Forum. I followed her as she interviewed policemen about the instructions they had been given on how to deal with protestors; I listened as she met with fisherfolk protesting against the construction of a dam and stood by as she comforted a father who had lost his family through bonded labour.

Special Rapporteur, Hina Jilani

Jilani didn't see these as isolated cases: "The common theme here is people protesting against a form of globalisation that denies them their fundamental human rights. People are talking about their livelihoods, their inability to access clean water or alienation from their land. These are known as economic, social and cultural rights and, too often, they are marginalised. Human rights defenders are not just individuals working for campaigning organisations, or lawyers taking cases to court, all the people protesting here are defending their own rights and so open up space for others to do the same. They are human rights defenders as well."

The role of the Rapporteurs is to join the dots across continents and show how small groups of people are protesting against similar phenomena. In isolation, their voices would be marginal, but pieced together they warn of larger problems. Miloon Kohari, Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, told me of one such case: "At the moment there is an epidemic of forced evictions. There's no link to a particular political system, it's happening in India, Burma, Cambodia, Iran and Zimbabwe and involves the movement of hundreds and thousands of people in a matter of weeks or months, largely in the name of urban development. It's unprecedented and no one is thinking of the long-term consequences."

Without the Special Rapporteurs, there would be no one to inject human stories and the urgency of unfolding situations into the stifling committee rooms of the UN

But what can the Special Rapporteurs do? They can have a significant impact. They write directly to governments and bring particular cases to their attention. When a government allows a Special Rapporteur to visit, strict conditions must be adhered to, guaranteeing freedom of movement and inquiry, access to all prisons and places of interrogation, contact with government representatives and confidential and unsupervised meetings with witnesses and victims. If endorsed by the UN Human Rights Council, their findings can prompt the provision of technical assistance or, in more serious cases, political action being taken.

But in the face of non-cooperation, the Special Rapporteurs' options are limited. Aside from being admonished by the UN, governments are not penalised for their lack of cooperation and the Rapporteurs remain impotent in the face of their evasion. The challenge for Jilani and her colleagues is to ensure high-quality reports so that governments are presented with watertight analyses. Under pressure to remove political motivations from decision-making, the Human Rights Council is then more likely to rely on them as an authoritative source of information and to take up cases of governments' refusal to cooperate.

Throughout the making of this series, I spoke to many people who are aware of the political constraints. Their overwhelming response was that, without the Special Rapporteurs, there would be no one representing them at the political level, no one to inject human stories and the urgency of unfolding situations into the stifling committee rooms of the UN. For them, the Rapporteurs are in the rare position of being able to remind diplomats and their masters that grave situations must be addressed. To them, that counts for a lot.


Gemma Mortensen is a human rights consultant, writer and broadcaster.

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