Principles
Our principles are not aspirational statements — they are operational commitments that shape every decision, every communication, and every engagement PHRD undertakes.
Core principles
These principles emerge from deep engagement with the human rights defender community, and from an honest reckoning with the ways organisations can cause harm even with the best intentions.
The right to speak, dissent, organise, and challenge power is the foundation of all other rights. PHRD defends those who exercise it — at personal cost to themselves — and believes that silencing defenders is an attack on everyone.
Accountability for perpetrators and redress for victims are not optional — they are the minimum standard of a functioning rights-based international order. PHRD does not accept impunity as an inevitability.
We create environments where defenders can act, organise, and heal — not merely 'safe' spaces, but brave ones where difficult truths are spoken, solidarity is real, and courage is met with support rather than silence.
Every decision PHRD makes is guided by the needs, safety, and expressed agency of defenders themselves. We do not speak for them — we create conditions for them to speak, act, and be heard on their own terms.
We recognise that defenders carry profound trauma as a result of persecution, loss, and displacement. Our work is shaped by an understanding of how this affects the whole person — and a commitment to care that goes beyond the legal and political.
We apply a strict do-no-harm standard across all our work — in documentation, public communications, and advocacy — to ensure our actions never increase risk to those we support. When in doubt, we prioritise safety over visibility.
Trauma-informed practice
Human rights defenders carry burdens that most people cannot imagine. Persecution, exile, the loss of family and community, and the psychological toll of witnessing and documenting atrocities — these are not background facts. They are central to who defenders are and what they need.
Trauma-informed practice means we do not treat defenders as sources of information to be extracted, or as cases to be managed. We recognise that re-telling traumatic experiences can itself cause harm, and we design all our processes accordingly.
This includes how we conduct interviews, how we store and protect sensitive information, how we communicate publicly about cases, and how we support the wellbeing of our own team — who are not immune to vicarious trauma.
Brave spaces
The concept of "safe spaces" is well-intentioned but ultimately insufficient for the work of human rights defence. Safety cannot always be guaranteed — and an environment built on the promise of safety can paradoxically become one that avoids the difficult conversations that defenders most need to have.
Brave spaces are different. They are environments built on honesty, care, and solidarity — where difficulty is not avoided but engaged with courage. Where disagreement is welcomed. Where vulnerability is met with respect rather than judgment.
This concept shapes how PHRD runs its programmes, facilitates its meetings, and engages with the defender community. We ask people to be brave — and we commit to making that bravery possible.
Safe spaces ask: will this hurt? Brave spaces ask: can we face this together?
— PHRD approach to community facilitation