A/HRC/13/22 Rapporteur has decided to develop a commentary to the Declaration, which should be published in the course of 2010. 67. The Special Rapporteur would like to call upon defenders to contribute to enhancing their own safety in a systematic manner. The examples of situations of insecurity and seasonal changes mentioned earlier may be used to anticipate and adopt strategies to prevent and reduce attacks. Digital and online security measures should also be put in place whenever possible. 68. Furthermore, many excellent protection tools, such as the Front Line Protection Handbook for Human Rights Defenders,12 have been developed by NGOs and NGO coalitions. Many NGOs have also developed security training. The Special Rapporteur calls upon human rights defenders to liaise with these NGOs and attend and organize training sessions. She also encourages wider dissemination of these tools among the community of human rights defenders. B. Physical protection of human rights defenders: good practices and challenges 69. Since the adoption of the Declaration on Human Rights, many intergovernmental and non-governmental regional mechanisms for the protection of defenders have been created and declarations and resolutions adopted. Despite the increase in organizations and instruments specifically aiming at their protection, defenders continue to pay a high price for their human rights activities. Some 11 years after the adoption of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the Special Rapporteur has found that there was a need to review and assess protection programmes put in place to ensure the physical and psychological integrity of defenders from attacks and threats. The Special Rapporteur hopes that this will shed light on the urgency of the situation and the need for States and non-State actors to move towards efficient responses to physically protect defenders. 1. National protection mechanisms 70. The acknowledgement of good practices and shortcomings of existing national protection programmes could pave the way to better protection and enable the Special Rapporteur to revisit her protection strategy. The Special Rapporteur believes that greater awareness of good practices in the area of protection will encourage replication. The protection mechanisms cited below are by no means perfect, but States should draw upon these examples to create, develop or improve strategies and programmes for the physical protection of defenders in their respective countries. (a) Witness protection programmes versus defender protection programmes 71. States have approached the protection of human rights defenders in different ways. Some have enacted formal protection mechanisms through legislation, while others have developed more informal systems.13 Nevertheless, many States still use their witness protection programmes as the only mechanism to ensure the protection of defenders at risk and consider such programmes sufficient. 72. In Argentina, a witness protection programme was reportedly created by resolution 439/07 of the Ministry of Justice, Security and Human Rights, which is used upon request of judicial authorities in federal investigations into kidnapping, terrorist acts or drug12 13 GE.10-10012 A. Tsunga, Protection Handbook for Human Rights Defenders (Front Line, 2007). See A/HRC/12/19. 13

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