Responsibilities
Within delegated authority, the Senior Human Rights Officer will be responsible for the following duties:
Oversees engagement of the Office in relation to protection and humanitarian action, and represents the Office in coordination mechanisms.
Formulates human rights strategies, including from a gender equality perspective; develops a vision or direction for work on human rights matters and creates the conditions for implementing that vision or direction.
Advises senior officials on human rights matters.
Represents the Office on matters of human rights, as delegated.
Negotiates directly with relevant parties the human rights elements of peace accords or the human rights concerns while long range solutions are sought.
Proposes policy directives and plan of action to appropriate United Nations bodies for immediate and long- range solutions to human rights problems in general and specific geographical areas.
Designs, develops and implements significant policy and program changes to address regional or global human rights issues, including their gender dimensions.
Formulates the programme of work, budget and medium-term plan of the unit and participates in the overall formulation and approval of the programme of work, and administrative matters concerning the Office.
Prepares human rights reports on key sectors or key developments.
Develops and maintains relations with other UN entities, international organisations and government officials and engages with them on human rights issues and policies.
Coordinates and oversees human rights research initiatives, as relevant.
Manages, coordinates, organizes and supervises human rights officers or organizational units as assigned, including on monitoring and analysis.
Leads team members' efforts to collect and analyze data and provides insight to identify trends or patterns for data-driven planning, decision-making, presentation and reporting. Ensures that everyone can discover, access, integrate and share the data they need.
Performs other related duties as required.
Education
Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in law, political science, international relations, social sciences or related field.
A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying work experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.
Work Experience
A minimum of ten years of progressively responsible experience in human rights, political affairs, international relations, law or related area is required.
At least three years of field experience is required, including in conflict or crisis settings.
Experience in managing diverse teams is required. Experience in human rights monitoring and analysis is desirable.
Experience in humanitarian action and engaging with humanitarian and crisis coordination mechanisms is desirable.