The International Board shares today the Ukraine Organizational Report which consolidates the learnings and recommendations drawn from the independent reviews that it commissioned into the August 4, 2022 extended press release on Ukraine. These reviews were carried out by independent external experts* who have agreed to the content of this organizational report. We would like to warmly thank them for their considerable and important work over the last months.
• Improving oversight and coordination in crisis situations.
• Strengthening collaborative and consensual decision-making including through engaging with staff across the movement more effectively.
• Managing dissent and disagreements to ensure that all views are heard and respected, and that disagreements are fairly resolved and recorded.
• Reviewing the format of our outputs and ensuring that even short outputs are based on strong legal analysis and underpinnings.
• Ensuring that impartiality remains fundamental to our research and advocacy.
• Improving holistic risk analysis and management.
• Strengthening our quality assurance process.
• Building on our work around staff well-being.
• Enhancing our capacity to speak cohesively and remain united.
• Upholding the principle of One Amnesty.
It is clear to us that only Amnesty can change Amnesty for the better. This report gives us an invaluable opportunity to take stock, have a moment of reflection, and strengthen Amnesty’s ability to deliver human rights change.
Going forward, leadership across Amnesty International will use this constructive feedback to build a comprehensive action plan that not only addresses the recommendations outlined but ensures we consistently and diligently implement them in the longer-term.
In conclusion, we wish to reaffirm that Amnesty International resolutely condemns Russia’s war and crime of aggression against Ukraine. Amnesty’s International Board, the International Secretariat, and the wider Amnesty movement stand as one to strongly express our solidarity with the people of Ukraine. On behalf of the International Board, I deeply apologize for the distress and anger that the press release of 4th August caused.
Amnesty should always be defined by our human rights impact and the people we serve.
In solidarity,
Anjhula
Dr Anjhula Mya Singh Bais
Chair, International Board
Amnesty International
* Emanuela-Chiara Gillard (University of Oxford); Kevin Jon Heller (University of Copenhagen); Eric Talbot Jensen (Brigham Young University); Marko Milanovic (University of Reading); and Marco Sassòli (University of Geneva). Adam Bodnar (Dean of the Law Faculty of the SWPS University in Warsaw, former Ombudsman of Poland), Daniel Genberg, and Sherine Jayawickrama.