Kate McInnes Leads Workshop from Strasbourg on Engaging UN Special Procedures to Support Human Rights Documentation on Belarus

Kate McInnes, Principal at Arendt Chambers, recently led a workshop from Strasbourg for Viasna Human Rights Center and Legal Initiative on how the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Procedures framework can support documentation and accountability work on torture and other grave human rights violations in Belarus.

The session brought together participants from several countries neighbouring Belarus, all engaged in the vital work of documenting abuses against Belarusians both within the country and in exile. Few mechanisms offer these documenters a route to getting findings on the record, and fewer still are equipped to help them use it effectively.

"Documentation work like this is what builds the record that tangible accountability is built on," Kate said. "UN Special Procedures won't deliver justice on their own, but they put findings on the record in a way that other mechanisms — domestic courts, sanctions regimes, and international tribunals like the International Criminal Court — can draw on later."

Alongside that broader accountability value, Special Procedures findings can carry real, immediate weight for individual rightsholders. Developing the skills to engage with the framework effectively — understanding the mandates most relevant to Belarus, assessing their outputs over the past six years to identify trends and gaps, and crafting submissions with a genuine chance of being taken up by mandate-holders — was the focus of the workshop.