Okay, colleagues, so I think we can start our today's event and welcome to our monthly webinar series on human rights engagement. It's really a pleasure to have you with us today. Today's edition is focusing on a very interesting topic and it is about how we can see more synergies in our collaboration with OHCHR and how we can find ways of seeing the complementarity of our mandates in the different scenarios that we work in, in different contexts, noting that OHCHR presence can be presented in different ways from OHCHR field office as a human rights advisor, as a part of the UN mission. So today we will hear a variety, actually, of UNHCR field presences. If we can go to the next slide, please, Peter. We have with us three colleagues from OHCHR. First, Said Almadoun, who is representing the Humanitarian Actions Unit of OHCHR based here in Geneva, and who will share with us some reflection on OHCHR field presences and our possible new ways of collaboration with protection clusters and humanitarian actors. And then we will hear from Elza Lepenek. Some of you might have already met Elza in other events we have organized with the Global Protection Cluster Human Rights Engagement task team. Elza is the human rights advisor for Syria crisis and has really a wealth of experience in this role. And we will also hear another angle from Ulazimi Shcherbao, who is currently working with the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine and who will share with us the reflection on the angle of the UN human rights mission and the possible ways of collaboration with them. So as you see, a very varied, I would say profile of panelists, a lot of experience with us. Above all, this session is really an informal opportunity for us to think and brainstorm how we can collaborate with OHCHR as one of the key counterpart of our activities in the field. So please colleagues use actively the chat function we will be constantly monitoring it and making sure that we can capture all of your questions, examples or reflections that you would like to share and bring back to the panelists. If you would like to also intervene and share your experience, you can put up your hand. We will be also monitoring that constantly. So after the panel, we will exchange together and see if we can bring some clarity around your questions or examples. And finally, we hope that we will be coming out of this event with some concrete recommendations on ways forward and how we can also better support you in the future if you have any questions on collaboration with OHCHR. So with that, I think it's time I give the floor directly to Saeed. Saeed, over to you, the floor is yours. If you can share your perspective from the OHCHR Humanitarian Actions Unit. Good afternoon, my name is Saeed. I'm working with the Humanitarian Action Unit based in Geneva. In my presentation, I will cover the variety of OHCHR field of presences and also to get to identify this diversity among the field of presences and how this can be factored on to what extent and the scale to which OHCHR engages in humanitarian action. Can we move to the next slide? So basically I'll start with the first slide. This is where is OHCHR located in the field? So basically we have four types of field of presences. We have 18 country or standalone offices that are located in 18 countries. Some of them are country offices or some are standalone or because they are different in what they called in each country. 12 regional presences in regions and across the five continents. Human rights components in 12 UN peacekeeping missions and special political missions. And in a number of contexts, OHCHR has deployed human rights advisors to the resident coordinators or humanitarian coordinators or the same having two hats, resident coordinators and humanitarian coordinators. And this has happened in 43 countries. Next slide. In this slide, basically we are narrowing down OHCHR field of presences to situations where there is a humanitarian cluster system or there is a humanitarian emergency. And these are 27 countries where OHCHR has a field of presence in 30 of those humanitarian crisis. Again, it's the same. But there is another element to this that in certain situations where there is a deterioration of a human rights issues, OHCHR can deploy rapid response where it increases the capacity to monitor human rights situation in certain countries. So we have also rapid response to respond to certain human rights situations. But this is different from what commission of inquiries or fact-finding missions do because these fact-finding missions or commission of inquiry are established by human rights council resolutions and they are independent from OHCHR. So we need to differentiate between OHCHR and commission of inquiries and fact-finding missions. Next slide, you will see this is where OHCHR is located. Where are the original offices, the human rights components of peace operations and where human rights advisors are deployed to support resident coordinators or humanitarian coordinators in crisis situations. The most recently established office is in Burkina Faso. It was established in October, 2021. We used to have a human rights advisor deployed to the resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator in Burkina Faso. In some contexts where we do not have access, we have a virtual office. For example, the OHCHR office for Syria is located in Beirut. So these are like each country office has its own story of how it was established in agreement with the country offices. In the next slides, I will go to give an overview of what these different OHCHR field of presences do in the real world. So as I said, any OHCHR field of presence is established based on an agreement with the host government. So our presence is basically agreed upon with the host government. And our mandate can include, I mean, any of the following. Each country office has their own mandate that was agreed with the host government. It may include human rights monitoring, public reporting on the country situation, technical operation assistance to a national government, to civil society, national human rights institutions, supporting legislative reforms. And also the scope of OHCHR's capacity building is always based on an assessment. It's agreed upon based on the analysis of the capacity and also the capacity of the local actors. Next slide will cover regional offices. Basically, regional offices, they are located in certain regions and they are based on, we work on a regional office based on consultations with the countries in each region. So when we focus, for example, the Sahar region, a regional office there looks at issues that are cross cutting across, for example, the Sahar region. Whenever we have a regional office, we also support the country offices in the region. So whenever there is work on capacity building, 3T bodies, engagement with international human rights mechanisms, the regional office supports the country offices. And in some of these country offices, you will see some implementation of projects. And also in the recent two years, a regional offices has also deployed and established early warning emergency response teams that supports the country office with regard to analysis developing early warning human rights indicators, et cetera. Next slide. Human rights components in UN peacekeeping missions or political missions. First, we need to understand that each UN mission is established by United Nations Security Council Resolution. The human rights component of the mission reports to the Secretary General Special Representative or the head of the mission. Usually, this reporting mechanism goes to both the head of the mission and also to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Also, the mandate is similar to a country offices, but they do beyond and that to support the UN peacekeeping mission in terms of the implementation of the mandate, implementation of the peace operations, bringing a human rights approach to the programming, supporting civil society, national human rights institutions, focusing also on how the national capacity to bring human rights elements to all kinds of programming. And we also support the protection of civilians mandate and wherever it possible, we do casualty tracking and we rely a lot on the human rights monitoring as well as also supporting the UN counterteam in terms of the implementation of the human rights due diligence. And usually the human rights component are regulated by the 2011 UN policy on human rights components in political missions. Next slide. In this slide, human rights advisers, they are one form of OSHR field of presences. They are deployed at the request of the UN resident coordinator on behalf of the UN country team. Usually there is consultations between OSHR and the resident coordinator. They agree on the selection of the human rights advisers, but human rights advisers support a lot the UN country team or humanitarian country team in terms of all aspects. That includes legal analysis, human rights analysis, integrating human rights based approach to all kinds of strategies whenever, like whether it is humanitarian response plans, HCT protection strategies or any post crisis recovery plans. And also they work a lot like in many situations with the civil society organizations, human rights groups, national human rights institutions and they do like other situations, capacity building, technical support to the UN country team, to other UN agencies, as well as promoting engagement with international human rights mechanisms. So you can see across all these field of presences, one of the key outcomes of OSHR is the human rights monitoring the data, the information, the analysis on the legal frameworks, as well as also shaping the narrative in these country situations around the human rights and also bringing the human rights based approach in all UN programs and UN strategies. My last slide is about this diversity of OSHR field of presences also will reflect upon the OSHR engagement in humanitarian action. And in this regard, I mean, the mandate of each country office, the mandate of the human rights advisor, as well as in a UN peacekeeping mission, since they are different, of course, the engagement will be different. And also it all depends on the size of the field of presences. In some presences, for example, like take occupied Palestinian territory, we have 40 staff. In other field of presences, you may have two or three or up to 10 staff. So, and also the scope of the work where you are across monitoring documentation of human rights and reporting or you are more as a technical capacity building office. And as well as the priorities of each country office. So, and also take note that OSHR mandate is broad. So we seek to influence not only humanitarian programs, but also development programs in UN peacekeeping missions. Also we look at how the peacekeeping operations. So the broad aspect of OSHR mandate and also the priorities in each field of presence can also determine how we will engage and with the scale of our engagement. And the last thing which also we need to factor in is to what extent we have access to the humanitarian architecture. Whenever there is a humanitarian country team is established, are we part of the humanitarian country team or we are not or we are part of the cluster or we are participating and collaborating with the existing coordination structures. So all of these factors, I think my colleagues will flesh out and elaborate more, but this is just an overview of where OSHR is located and the different roles and mandates of OSHR. Over to you, Valerie. Thank you. Thank you so much, Said. This has been really informative. I believe for everybody for me, definitely I have already some questions lined up, but I'm sure colleagues do have as well. So you can start posting your questions as they come to you. I will be monitoring them progressively. But now we go first to Elsa. As already foreshadowed, Elsa is the Human Rights Advisor in Syria. So to hear from you firsthand how the work of the Human Rights Advisor look like and what are the opportunities for collaboration. So over to you, Elsa, please. Thanks very much, Valerie. Can you hear me well? Yeah. Thank you. Thanks to the Global Protection Cluster for this new invitation and really thanks for taking this important initiative this year. It's really appreciated. It's always a very good occasion to share experience. So I'm happy to share this Syria experience again and have this opportunity to discuss our lessons, learn and challenges in the Syria response. I also believe that these discussions are important if we want at some point to replicate the Syria model of embedding Human Rights Advisers in H.C.'s Humanitarian Coordinators Office or aspects of it in future emergency context. So just to... So I'm one of the two Human Rights Advisers deployed by the office, by OHCHR, Syria Office since 2015. And I explain this later. So first slide, please. So I'll be brief on this first slide just to explain that indeed we as an office have been part of the UN response in the Syria crisis since 2011, although as we were not, we're not in the country. So we're not inside the country. So we're not a virtual office, but we haven't been granted what we call the in-country presence by the government of Syria despite repeated requests, as you can imagine. So the office as Said, as my colleague has explained earlier, so our office function has as the traditional unit and components that a human rights presence has in the field. So we of course have this monitoring and reporting unit. We also have a rule of law and accountability units with a legal advisor. And we have a civil society and technical cooperation units. And in addition to those three, I would say traditional components of a human rights office, we have since 2015 what we call the Human Rights in Humanitarian Action Project or HRAs. So we are two, initially we were three, human rights advisors deployed by the office to the offices of each HCs, bearing in mind that in Syria, the whole of Syria approach is a bit different and the structure includes three humanitarian coordinators, unlike in other places. So we have the resident coordinator, humanitarian coordinator based in Damascus. Then we have the regional humanitarian coordinator in Amman and we have a deputy regional humanitarian coordinator in Gaziantep, Turkey, who leads the operation for the cross-border operation from Turkey. So this is what we call the whole of Syria approach, which is indeed a bit unusual. What I wanted to say is that indeed, so the office in 2015, also because of the lack of access and because we work from outside, has decided to deploy initially three human rights advisors to each HC and now we are two. So my colleague Aziz, also based in Beirut, advises the resident coordinator in HC in Damascus and then I, I'm also based in Beirut, but I advise the two other HCs in Amman and Gaziantep. So this is just to set up the structure of this whole of Syria structure that we advise. So basically when we look at our main method of work or the responsibilities that we have as HRA, in a nutshell, we have three main responsibilities. One is of course the provision of technical advice and support to humanitarian leadership to those three humanitarian coordinators, but also to UN agencies through the UN country team and UN humanitarian country team. The second is to support the HPC. So it's really to integrate human rights and international standards and the analysis in the humanitarian programming. So it's the HNO and the HRP. And finally, and this is really to summarize, finally we're building the capacity of humanitarian actors on IHL and human rights norms. And here it's important to say that many of, I mean, many of these activities are based on a thorough understanding of the IHL and human rights development in the grounds. And this is made possible through the office extensive monitoring efforts. And that's why it's important to look at the HRA's role as part of a package. And that's also why Syria office and Syria experience is quite unique and innovative is that we come as sort of a large machinery and it's not only us HRAs supporting humanitarian coordinated, but it's very much based on the monitoring and reporting that is produced by this unit, but also on the legal advice that we are able to provide as well as the work we're doing with CSOs and all the engagement. Next slide, please. So on this one, a couple of achievements that we are able to report and to discuss now. Since six years, our main task was to effectively support the functioning of the protection sector or cluster, but also not only the protection sector, but other sectors by creating mechanisms and tools, but also by engaging in the humanitarian program cycle as I say, to allow a human rights based analysis of protection risks and violation and priorities. And we've done this through, I mean, in different ways. One is one of the achievements by HRAs. This is very much related to the work we've done with the protection cluster in Gaziantep with your colleagues in Gaziantep. And this is the human rights reference group. I'm not gonna go too much into details here because there's been a recent publication that is on the webpage of the Global Protection Cluster. I'm sure you all know about this recent paper by ODI and JPC on Collaborative Advocacy between Humanitarian and Human Rights Actors. I think it's in page six and we have a page dedicated to the Human Rights Reference Group, but just few words to explain what we've done to respond to a gap identified back in 2015, which really speaks to this collaborative approach and how we can work together. So the Human Rights Reference Group was established in Gaziantep in 2015 when I arrived, when I was deployed to bring together humanitarian actors and human rights NGOs, mainly Syrian NGOs, but also international NGOs. And initially it served as a platform to exchange on human rights and IHL concerns, but also to create, to start creating this interaction between the members of the Protection Cluster and other clusters and this human rights community, which was not at that time necessarily engaged or involved or invited by the cluster. The situation in Syria, as you know, is quite challenging in terms of addressing human rights issues, in terms of human rights advocacy, in terms of these issues that took a while to become issues on which we work together. So we have established this coordination forum in full consultation with UNHCR as the CLA, but also sustained by the cluster coordination team, of course, UNHCR and IRC. And really we complemented each other rather than competing each other, obviously. And the idea was to look at the identified gaps that were in terms of human rights and protection analysis, in terms of advocacy that was needed by the humanitarian coordinators. And it's really something that we've decided we have actually named the group together with the previous cluster coordinator in Gaziantap and then it became a place where we have not only the Protection Cluster Coordination Team, Catherine and Mohamed, your colleagues in Gaziantap, who attend the meetings, who support the meetings and the facilitation sometimes, but also a number of other cluster coordinators because we, of course, believe in which UNHCR believes that protection mainstreaming also and the human rights mainstreaming goes beyond the protection sector and needs to really permeate the other humanitarian sector. So in terms of the comprehensive analysis of the protection situation that has resulted from this information exchange, I think this analysis has enabled the group to serve as a platform for a better coordination or better coordination of strategic advocacy on key protection issues. And that's really important as we now look at what we have and you will have more information on that in the paper I mentioned. The second achievement, and I'll try to be brief on this on the two second ones because I'm already, I wanted to mention the work we're doing at a different level, as I said, the whole of Syria structure also involves the other hubs, Damascus and Naman, and here we have the whole of Syria protection sector. And here we've worked very extensively with the protection sector since at least 2015, but then on the occasion of the adoption of the protection strategy by the SSG, the SSG in Syria is the equivalent of your HCT. So it's the HCT in the country. And the idea was to contribute to collective protection advocacy by this SSG, which is the whole of Syria strategic steering group by focusing on four critical protection issues that the SSG would work together to address through high level advocacy. And this is another achievement and a collective achievement, I would say, and really long story short, the revised advocacy plan was endorsed by the SSG. Now we're looking at a way to operationalize this advocacy plan by including by ensuring that we have a dedicated protection item on the agenda of each HCT. And that's what happens in a number of countries I've worked in and really to have not only a protection discussion that takes place involving the heads of agencies and clusters, but also a regular protection updates provided by the protection sector with the support of OHHR human rights advisors. The last one and very briefly one word on that, it's the HPC. So the way we've managed over the years to integrate human rights and IHL and also strengthen the protection language in the HNO and HRP. It's been, I mean, since 2015, there's been increasingly more human rights protection language in 2015, there was absolutely no, or probably no human rights language, very limited protection language in the HNO and HRP. It's not been an easy game, but we've worked with the support of the protection sector to integrate this language and this concerns much more over the years. Next slide, please. So on the lessons learned and again, I'll try to be brief. First, to say what I've said in the first slide is that this HRA project and the Human Rights and Humanitarian Action Project is a bigger machinery than just one expert providing advice to the humanitarian coordinator. It's effectively a package that includes the monitoring and reporting, as well as the advocacy and the legal tools produced by our office by OHSHR Syria, but it's also an easy access to UN human rights mechanisms and the political support through the High Commissioner public advocacy on IHL and human rights in Syria. The second lesson learned from my experience is that we as HRAs are complementary to existing resources and we do not overlap with preexisting advocacy support through the resident coordinator or HC, but for example, of course the protection cluster coordinators and the protection lead agency is doing its part. So it's also fair to say that the protection cluster and the cluster system in itself has become so convoluted in processes and structure that the PC coordinators, and I was a protection cluster coordinator in Haiti 10 years ago, or have little time for advocacy support and there is a clear complementarity value in having human rights advisors supporting the humanitarian leadership. Also in a complex context like Syria where we need to address effectively a number of sensitive and difficult human rights issues, which humanitarian actors are not necessarily in a position to do so. And I'm talking about issues like detention or enforces appearances or accountability for violations, which are issues that cannot be necessarily and easily addressed by the protection cluster. Finally, the last one on this lesson's learn, what we've also seen was the importance of reaching a consensus at the HCT level to be able to take the advocacy effort from different angles. Sometimes it has proven to be easier to work with the humanitarian coordinator to address a number of issues and then support and work together with the protection sector and other sectors to push. So, and it's really important to have this sort of consensus and common starting points among heads of agencies and among clusters with sort of a common push at the inter-cluster level to be able to address a number of sensitive issues and then to bring the protection analysis. And finally, last slide on challenges, few and of course the structure of this whole of Syria response is a bit unusual, which also means that the work of each human rights advisor has been very different from one hub to the other, including terms of access to the UN country team or to the HCT, but also in terms of the contact to contact with CSOs, attitude of partners. So that's a bit difficult indeed to measure, but the second challenge that we've seen is, and again, we've seen a lot of progress here, but it's true that sometimes the humanitarian cluster and the protection cluster is not always inclusive enough to accommodate all the actors that can influence the IHL and human rights situation on the ground. And we've seen that for example, the creation and the facilitation of a group like the human rights reference group in Gaziantep can actually complement rather than duplicate the coverage and activities of the cluster. And again, I say that we've moved and we've done made a lot of progress here because now you have Syrian human rights NGOs member of the protection cluster. You have a lot of engagement by the protection cluster coordination team through the human rights reference group. As I said, they're actively contributing, actively supporting. We have retreats next week in Gaziantep with the protection cluster coordination team who has invited us human rights advisors to co-facilitate a session precisely on this collaboration between the protection actors and human rights actors. So there's a lot of progress that we've made since six years. So I'll stop here, I guess. Valérie, over to you and I look forward to the discussion. Sorry, I was a bit long. Thank you. No, on the contrary Elsa, this is so interesting and you will see that there are a lot of questions coming your way in the chat. A lot of interest from colleagues to hear a bit more. So we will get to those questions once we complete our panel. Thank you colleagues who are online for being so engaged and it's great to see such an interest and I encourage you to use the chat function to ask questions and we will get back to them. But before then, I will give the floor to Ulazimir who will give us yet another perspective from Ukraine and the UN monitoring mission. So over to you please, Ulazimir. Good afternoon, colleagues. I'll really try to be short and not to exhaust your patience and readiness to hear, to speaking heads. So I'll try to be the quickest speaking head, but no guarantees. So colleagues, our mission has a really broad mandate, probably the broadest possible mandate for OHHR missions in the field. So we do reporting, monitoring, protection by presence, technical assistance, legal advice. We do and the government often complete as they invited us and now they have a troublemaker. And definitely I need to not to confess, but to admit, we enjoy exemplary cooperation with UNHCR colleagues who are backbone for the protection clusters worldwide and in Ukraine we have really good cooperation and Lydia Kuzmienko, I checked on the participants. Our colleague and good friend from UNHCR is here basically. So once again, I'll present you the OHHR views on how we interact, but basically probably once again if you want to know the UNHCR views, how to interact with OHHR. On the example of Ukraine, you can reach out to our Kyiv colleagues, UNHCR colleagues in Kyiv and they will tell you the truth. So as a side of the story, but we believe we are the besties with UNHCR as well as with other partners in the protection cluster. And basically once again, we're not very much typical in some regards compared to some other OHHR field presences because once again, shortage of resources, limited mandate doesn't allow us to be fully engaged in the humanitarian action, but we are fully determined as OHHR as it was said by colleagues, but anyway, so our story wouldn't be too, you know, typical for OHHR engagement into humanitarian action. So to cut the short, I will switch to the presentation and I will say from the very beginning, I mean, you don't need to know the Ukrainian crisis which unfolds since 2014. But just to explain simply, basically it was an armed conflict and it was big enough in terms of hostilities and the impact on the population, huge IDPs, flows and basically it was big enough to draw big international attention. So in 2014, Ukraine was flooded with international attention, with international organizations, including UN Presence and with sufficient financial and human resources to put in place a relevant protection machinery. So if you proceed with the next slide, you would immediately see that, I mean, when the conflict broke out, we had immediately the protection cluster and definitely because OHHR was there basically by the time when the conflict broke out, we definitely became an integral part of the all the protection machinery and even effectively co-chair the protection cluster together with UNHCR. It wasn't for so long, anyway, and then the UNHCR took the lead. But anyway, we were the part, natural part of this coordination architecture from the very beginning. So what could be the entry points? I mean, we didn't need an entry point. It was completely natural from the very beginning. And clearly, clearly, once again, we were also OHHR not lucky, but it was the fact we were a member of the HCT and sometimes in some countries, HCT is kind of exclusive a little bit to many actors. It's a kind of a big guns HCT and then the other small guns can be somewhere in the protection cluster. But anyway, we are the part of the HCT and therefore it's also enables us to be kind of an actor in this field. So we fully participate in all the processes. Once again, read the books, all the HNO, HRP, all the coordination structure, we are part of it. And once again, because we enjoyed the cooperation of UNHCR but otherwise by the nature of the conflict in Ukraine. Next slide, please. Once again, what were the enabling factors? As I told you, I mean, there was a common understanding we didn't need as a UN or as a protection cluster to struggle to explain that the crisis in Ukraine is a protection cluster that was clearly from the very beginning. So surely, I mean, we reported a lot. As a monitoring mission, we reported on a monthly basis public reports which were read up to the Security Council with big attention. Definitely, we helped to shape the feeling that it's a protection crisis. And surely, I mean, this was an entry point for OSCHR. It was natural that you have OSCHR on board when you discuss the protection stuff. So we may call it enabling factor. And it was also essential. We were physically present in the conflict zone during the most...  We had been in the conflict zone and that was also kind of enabling factor for OSCHR to be a valuable member of the protection cluster of the protection team. And once again, because up until now the conflict is considered to be a protection crisis, I mean, naturally, we're there. So these are the, if you may say, one may say enabling factors for us to be in. Next slide, please. I have done my presentation. So just two minutes. More challenges and bottlenecks. Once again, I wouldn't call it once again. I realized only before the presentation that the majority of the audience would be OSCHR colleagues. And once again, we don't have major problems in interaction with OSCHR colleagues and with the protection cluster. So my slides would be rather addressed to OSCHR colleagues who are working in this area. And basically once again, as it was noted by the previous presenter, sometimes there is certain overlap in this sophisticated architecture. And once again, sometimes we feel it's kind of too sophisticated. And for us, sometimes it's not kind of very convenient to work on various parallel or kind of duplicating traits of coordination and somehow. But we believe it's almost inevitable, but this is actually the challenge. And the small agency is, and we're a small agency, there are more challenges to be able somehow to have enough resources to sink into and to sink through all this sophisticated coordination mechanism. And lastly, once again, to be a participant, to be a meaningful participant of the protection cluster and the whole architecture, protection architecture, you need to participate. And that could be definitely a challenge because sometimes you don't have resources or time. Or you have different priorities. Once again, to get into it. So our advice in the bottlenecks, which would need to be somehow addressed if UNHCR is in charge of putting in places architecture or somehow facilitating or being a secretary or whatever, you mean somehow to try to simplify it to enable smaller agencies to be part of. Sometimes they're small enough so they just abandon or participate nominally. So this would be kind of a sort of recommendation. And last slide, please. Yeah. How this could be addressed? It's once again both recommendations on the slide which you see basically address our OSHR colleagues who need to try still to go to all these groups, to all these coordination. Participate. If you don't do it, I mean your voice and your concerns would be just ignored. And in the case of Ukraine, we sometimes have too many actors. So you need to struggle to get your voice being heard to not necessarily by the UNHCR colleagues, but I mean by the other community which is huge. So and the second recommendation basically is related to the first one. It's basically there could be some, you know, proactive effort from the protection clusters in cases when the OSHR field presence is not strong enough or doesn't have the capacity to engage us proactively to draw us in or somehow to request us to like proactively provide feedback to a certain document and rely on our reports. Once again, we issue a lot of reports and analysis even in case we're not there. Please somehow try to get OSHR views and analysis on board. And in some cases, once again, we can present fairly unique expertise on issues and yes, sometimes we're perceived as not a black sheep, but troublemaker who cares about pure human rights vis-à-vis humanitarian needs for the like shelter needs and spoiling but somehow deteriorating the relations with the duty bearers, especially in the conflict zone. I'm groups whatever therefore please don't be afraid of us. We will not spoil the more neutral and less controversial stuff. I mean, please reach out to us to get us engaged and take our views on board. This is basically short. I had some answers to some questions on the panel, but once again probably upon the discussion I'll be able to answer, but I have a couple of answers to a couple of specific questions over to you, Valerian colleagues. Thank you. Thank you so much, Ulanzimir and I saw the reactions from our colleagues Lidia and Hugo also confirming the collaboration you have in the country. I was inspired when you said our collaboration was natural because Ukraine is a protection crisis and the links between protection cluster its members UNHCR and the mission where natural you would be surprised maybe you're not surprised, but we don't see it that natural in other contexts despite the fact that they are protection crisis as well. So it's good to hear and good practice from Ukraine you have shared with us and I'm sure you'll go more in detail further in the discussion. So thanks to all our three panelists, colleagues wonderful, we see you now on screen. No more presentations, but I would like to bring to your attention some of the questions that our colleagues who join us today raised, but also we received few questions ahead of the event that I will also bring to this forum. So colleagues, you can still be posting questions I will keep adding, but with the first round of questions coming to you. So firstly a question how does OHHR coordinate human rights engagement with other UN specialized mandate agencies. So how is OHHR supporting the work of UN entities in regards to engagement with human rights mechanisms? This is the first question and I will not assign any panelists, please pick up the questions as you seem as you deem fit. Going to other questions a lot on the example in Syria as well and the fact that OHHR is not physically present in Syria as we heard. How do you collect data in this kind of situation? How do you verify the accuracy of data if you are not physically present in how to make it efficient through this remote monitoring and analysis which is being done at the same time when you receive a lot of sometimes very sensitive information how do you protect as the witnesses or the sources of information that is brought to you and in addition to that how do you collaborate with armed groups armed actors? This is in relation to Ukraine but also Syria. Is there collaboration with ICRC for example on topics such as detention? More on the collaboration and the more sensitive engagement if you can broadly share with us some of the key highlights. In this first round I would also like to bring to the panelists a question from Shaisa which is very interesting are there some minimum standards for joint collaboration including advocacy coordination communication protection monitoring so different aspects are there already existing minimum standards in terms of what is expected both from OHCHR as well as the protection cluster UNHCR in terms of what can be done despite the differences of different context and operations in which we are working so I will stop here for the first round and turn towards you our dear panelists Sait would you like to start? Thanks Valerie I mean I started my presentation or I ended it up with there is no one size fits all approach and each of the experiences whether in Syria or in Ukraine has its own uniqueness but I think we can agree that there are some enabling or conducive environment I mean in Syria the creation of this reference working group having the space for a human rights discussion and having this discussion or this forum feeding the human rights advisors and also feeding the human rights analysis and its integration into the advocacy and also to the program cycle I think that this is how I mean first I think we need to think about what is the conducive environment enabling factors for this to happen and I mean is the structure in place can be promoting such or not again I think also Elsa talked about now there is more human rights actors in the protection cluster or there might be in other sectors as well at the same time also the Ukraine example also give us that I think the early engagement on human rights is very important not that it comes at a later stage and when you have some resistance and when you have more operational issues so the early the engagement the better you can consolidate your collaboration and your partnership so again I think also the example in the occupied Palestine and territory because the office is established since 1996 it proceeded the activation of the cluster system in 2009 so when you have an established field of presence and it's strong and it's well equipped when we took lead of the protection cluster we were able to bring all these and connect all the dots and we were able we have the space and we have all the structure and the vehicles to drive this process so I think these are like several things that I would see I mean they were enabling factors for such strong analysis and integration of human rights I'll give I mean others also can elaborate over. Yeah, thanks thanks Vanirji so maybe I'll take the first question on collection of information verification so Syria is not the only example where we teach us doing remote monitoring right there's other examples Somalia there's a number of places including Iraq at some point where we do that so this is really based on a clear methodology that is not only based on experience depending on the context but also now very much supported by the HQ where we have our METS colleagues were very much supporting with guidance and tools so in the Syria context there's been a change between the early years of the conflict where we had we never had access per se but we were able to have human rights officers from the monitoring and reporting unit traveling to the different neighbouring countries so we were regularly travelling to Turkey Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon there's a constant monitoring of the situation on IHL and human rights violations by the team from Beirut working with primary sources and sanctuary sources but we verify information with primary sources it's a lot it's incredibly challenging particularly when it comes to for example the situation of besieged areas we had a time like for years in Syria where most of the human rights violations and abuses were taking place in such areas so it's not only in a place where we don't have access but it's also in besieged areas inside Syria so the collection and verification takes time it's sometimes a bit frustrating because we are indeed as the human rights office the only provider of information when it comes to CIFCAS civilian casualties so we it takes time indeed particularly when we have only three human rights offices looking at the entire territory with such complex issues that we need to to address you can imagine that detention for example is one of those issues where it's extremely difficult not only in the government controlled areas but also in armed groups areas that takes me to the question on detention with ICRC so obviously we work with ICRC at different level there's a lot of collaboration at the legal advice level so our legal advisor as I said we have a rule of law and accountability unit he's our legal advisor also based in Beirut is working very closely with ICRC legal advisor and the team on issues related to detention and forced disappearances but also on other issues and other legal issues and I take the example of the Turkish occupation in north in northern Syria which raises a number of legal issues obviously which has direct impact for cluster coordinators and for humanitarian clusters and I was in many conversations at the inter cluster group level in Gaziantep years ago when this first Turkish operation started and I'm actually calling from Istanbul so I should be careful with that but this raises a number of legal issues that will determine access to services so that's one of the thing that we do is to provide legal advice and legal notes so we've introduced over 9 legal notes since 6 years and obviously here there's a lot of discussion consultation with ICRC on the protection of sources that's one of the key aspect of OHR role as you can imagine and we do a lot of risk analysis, risk assessment any activity is preceded by a risk assessment and it's something that we've done across the line and across the activities and across the offices so we have a lot of experience we also have an ASG who is our head of office in New York who is in charge of particularly looking at this issue not only of the protection of victims and witnesses but also reprisals so there's a lot of work being done at the field level, field office can I shall I take the question on the minimum standard of it's a long it's a very good question and indeed I think that I don't recall the exact question but I think there was can we share what was the question I guess the terms of reference we are already existing minimum standards on the collaboration that are in place between OHR protection cluster OHR if we have something to draw on basically and refer to if we are for example in the field so first of all I think it's a question to both the global protection cluster and to us and I really appreciate the efforts by the human rights management team and what you're doing this year precisely to answer this question there's no minimum standards per se not that I am aware of apart from what you can find in the policies that we obviously all know by hurt but the thing is that it's more I think it's really more on how we collectively have managed since at least 10 years to look at best practices lesson learned and what works in in in certain context and I remember this OHR led exercise and on lessons learned in Haiti as we led and we are leading and the protection cluster we did the same in Syria two years ago so we have a lessons learned exercise and those exercises are bringing together all of us to look into what can be done and what can be adjusted and adapted depending on the context but again as I say it's not a one size fits all it's really depending on the context depending on the structure depending on the response itself and then of course it depends on individualities but at the end of the day what we need to reach and that's exactly what Victoria's paper is is helping to achieve is really to have an institutional response beyond the different context that we are dealing with it's really what is it that we can do together and then very much depending on whether we can do it and how how much resources how much support we can get from from beyond because it's also you can have a very active protection cluster in the fields in a very good collaboration between a protection cluster and OATHR but if you don't have the support of an intra cluster coordination group and OSHA as in charge of this humanitarian coordination mechanism you will only be able to do protection and human rights mainstreaming at the protection cluster sector level which is for us good but not enough we believe again that human rights integration goes beyond a cross sector so I'm just going to stop on this but there was also the Victoria's question I like your quick question Victoria yeah indeed I mean I'm sure that we can all answer this question but ensuring that the analysis of the human rights situation is it your question yes it's your question what is the experience to inform the development yeah can I just leave it to my colleague from Ukraine and then go back to the question from Victoria the second round of questions and thank you so much for exhausting those questions just for colleagues to know we have Victoria Amitkalf on the call who really led the research of ODI on opportunities for further collaboration between human rights and humanitarian actors and you have the link to her research paper in the chat and we are now working both at the level of the global protection cluster as well as UNHCR as an agency to provide some kind of guidance in terms of what is expected in terms of minimum engagement with OHCHR so to respond to Shaisa this is definitely and now on our table and we are working with Said and other colleagues in follow up to the ODI reports recommendation it's good Elsa that you also mentioned OHCHR we have Dina from OHCHR on the call so we cannot stress enough also the support of OHCHR in the inter cluster coordination in the field so very well noted Dina if there are any aspects to highlight please feel free but before that I go first to Ula Zemir to respond to some of the questions and then I have a second round of questions that I collected in the chat and we'll go back to the panelists so over to you Ula Zemir please for the first round of questions Thank you very much I'll try to answer any telegraph style because we are running short of the time so to allow colleagues to speak more very quickly once again the advice from OHCHR would be to the protection cluster if you have really sensitive human rights or sensitive protection issue damp it to OHCHR it's our kind of definitely all of us shall care about the protection but once again OHCHR is somehow perceived as the agency which deals with the most grave or most acute like human rights or aspects of the protection crisis so where can be useful in some context probably the UN presences feel sensitivities host governments or defective authorities so I mean OHCHR is anyway black sheep so damp it on us so on ICRC with Ukrainian experience basically yes we enjoy exemplary cooperation in terms of access to detainees and basically both in the government control territory and the territory controlled by the armed group definitely you know ICRC is extremely secretive they okay don't like black box never give any information so we still manage to maintain meaningful dialogue and coordination with them and somehow coordinate our access efforts especially in territory controlled by some groups where the access is sophisticated therefore advocate jointly for access of international monitors not specific access for OHCHR a specific access for ICRC so we manage to coordinate and we would encourage basically the field presences to work with ICRC it is possible in Ukraine we have rather positive experiences of interaction it could be extremely useful on interaction with armed groups once again in Ukraine both UNHCR and us and other actors basically we have understanding that the de facto authorities or armed groups have the human rights obligations they are duty bearers and we do we don't carry out the capacity building that would be too much but definitely advocacy in terms of the obligations in terms of protection and human rights compliance we do it and we are physically present in territory controlled by the armed groups UNHCR as well so basically once again the experience it's possible we have some many limitations natural limitations and restrictions from the armed groups and some kind of political controversies not to make the government too mad host government not creepy recognitions that our activities don't create assembles of creepy recognition of these entities but in principle we do interact with them and we believe it's conducive to the protection so we have rather positive experience and if colleagues would share with you more with the somatic agencies very good questions definitely I mean human rights cover everything but once again we somehow intuitively if it's about IDPs surely we engage but mostly it's UNHCR piece of cake but sometimes with the joint advocacy the same with the children once again okay children it's for UNICEF and we somehow coordinate so once again there are no clear lines and when there is a robust agency which with a specific mandate we don't try to interfere because we have too many human rights on the plate but we always find the meaningful form for joint advocacy and action and on the prevention I don't know to which extent it's common for other field presences surely for field presences whether it's ongoing on conflict we're in charge of civilian casualty reporting and in Ukraine we're considered the UN agency which is in charge of like purely military part of the conflict civilian casualties impact of hostilities on civilians so therefore therefore I believe and our findings of OCHR definitely inform the advocacy by the protection cluster so surely surely I mean we have a role to play and I'm not speaking about peacekeeping mission that separate instance so definitely I mean we can be useful for the protection cluster with our knowledge and expertise and the last one the question I mean how our analysis informs HRP surely you UNHCR colleagues I mean very often okay it's a collective effort but sometimes a pen holder very often it's UNHCR who drafts all the papers and this is a case for for Ukraine I mean it's simple basically read our reports and in case of Ukraine there is a plenty of our reports that plus share with us as the documents told us last last minute drafting and no one saw the last draft I mean please allocate five minutes to share it with OCHR that wouldn't be a waste and will help will help to form the language but once again in case of Ukraine we basically as I explained to we don't have a major problem that we find sometime or no human rights language in the HRP not the case which is also the result of our good cooperation with UNHCR sorry for being too talkative over to you back colleagues Thank you it's a mirror and it's good to hear the good practices from Ukraine I see Dina's comment or reaction in the chat that it would be good to maybe get more details but even bilaterally how you have managed to weave in the human rights into the HNO HRPs this is what we are thinking now at with OCHR how basically use the momentum of the call to action launched by the secretary channel and ensure that we have a more effective human rights response planning and response so let me turn we have time so I can turn for the second round of questions to you here panelists and pick on maybe other types of questions or emails that were raised and first question is appears very simple but very important if you can provide a list of the countries where human rights advisors are present on the 40 43 or 45 you mentioned and this will be very useful for our colleagues there was a specific question on India but I'm sure we can find out is there actually some kind of a link online where we can see based on country what is the OCHR presence so we can find out somewhere in a centralized manner what is the different presence of OCHR in a country so this is the first question second question is can OCHR help and support with capacity building around human aspects collaboration with human rights mechanisms if so can we take it forward and approach directly OCHR for such an initiative or human rights advisors directly the third question would be around advocacy and there were various questions related to advocacy you already touched on the question what is actually the I would say input or power or impact of human rights advisors in ensuring that humanitarian program cycle is more human rights centered or the human rights based approaches are more weaved in if you could elaborate on that a bit more but also if you can give more example Elsa directed to you in relation to the human rights reference group in Gaziantep what has been the impact of your advocacy if you have some concrete examples and the work around HR and IHL violations you mentioned going to the next if you could reflect a little bit more on what are the enabling factors for effective collaboration between OCHR protection cluster OCHR civil society members as part of the protection cluster or UNHCR if you have any thoughts on that and finally I would suggest to conclude also with a question on what is the role of OCHR in bridging the collaboration with peace building actors and the work on prevention over to you colleagues a lot going your way but extremely interesting questions I don't know if you want to go in the same or if you feel free please to take the floor maybe I start Saeed or I start with Victoria's first question on enabling factors I would say that first of all I think that the understanding of the centrality of protection is key for all of us and sometimes we just are in a situation where and it happens everywhere and not only we are working with colleagues who either don't necessarily know the centrality of protection and I'm not talking about the field level protection cluster itself I mean it goes beyond it's actually again centrality of protection is a tool for everyone it's not only for protection actors so it's something that needs to be that we need actors to be aware of to know and to know how to use at some point you know in the Syria context we would try to use the human rights upfront action plan which was actually a very bad idea I remember discussions of back in 2017 where we couldn't even address the human rights upfront action plan because that was just a no go given the complexity and the sensitivity of the context but for us it doesn't really matter because the human rights upfront and the centrality of protection actually builds on the human rights upfront and vice versa and the guidance note for humanitarian coordinators on the centrality of protection is also a very good map and roadmap to explain and basically leads and guides humanitarian leadership and humanitarian actors so one is of course the understanding and there's a lot of work to be done by all of us in terms of capacity building and really the practicalities of the centrality of protection the second is really what I think you are doing well this year when you look at best practices I remember starting in Gaziantap using an example that I actually used back in Mali in Bamako where I was trying to get WHO and health cluster colleagues in the ancestor of the human rights reference group which was called Groupe Travaille so Accès à la Justice et Rouleau Flow but it was the same but we did the same in Mali in a peacekeeping setting with the MINUSMA and the idea was really to have health workers visiting individuals in pre-trial detention facing a number of challenges and mental health challenges and that was a good example that I used with WHO and other actors back in Gaziantap to explain that we can work together very much depending on a strict risk analysis and a good understanding of what is at stake and again that's why I mentioned this risk analysis that the office is doing all the time on what is it that the victim or a witness is exposed to and how can we mitigate all things together with these kind of risks so I think the second is really best practices to operationalize the centrality of protection and say well actually this works this works in other contexts and we can use it as a way to maybe convince others who are a bit hesitant or resistant the idea as I said a common starting point and a consensus at the HCT level is also important I think it's sometimes helping and that's why the interaction and your question Victoria is good because it's really both in terms of the interaction between the cluster and OHCHR but also between UNHCR as the CLA and OHCHR at different level, at the HCT level if we manage to push and to adopt and to endorse a protection strategy and that needs to be operationalized by everyone then of course this will help having an effective implementation of again of what we try all to achieve which is this collective protection outcomes so these are few ideas but this follow up question maybe I don't know if I answer your question Victoria but I think it's a discussion that we wanted to have but your follow up question on the HNO so we we work through of course we work with the protection sector to ensure that at least we're consulted we share a lot in terms of civil and casualties and information on human rights violation HNO so that's what we've done no later than last week with Aman so we do share upon their request this kind of information at large the humanitarian community and leadership relies on OHCHR for civil and casualties and for this kind of reports because we are the only one providing this verified information again I really insist on verified information we are the only actor with this mandate and with this capacity even when it's challenging but to provide this information there's a lot of information that feeds into that informs the HNO the fact that we also decide to present a project in the HRP in a number of contexts also helps not only discussing that's what we're doing now with Samir and colleagues at the whole of Sierra level and OHCHR to discuss the strategic objective of the HRP sometimes we also have the ability to be consulted and to suggest a number of activities and indicators but also to frame a number of not a number actually one when we are lucky to frame a possible strategic objective which is of course coming from outside this kind of enhancing the protection response by addressing IHL concerns but also very much looking at for example the engagement with human rights mechanisms and what is the impact which actually leads me to the first question on impact always difficult to measure impact but we have a lot of one of the experience of the HRIG in the health sector where obviously Syria is known as one of the worst crisis in terms of attacks on health care back in 2017 we had something like 35-40 attacks on hospitals and medical units per month so this was really critical we've done a lot of work with the WHO the health cluster and Syrian medical NGOs for human rights to raise the issue but also to ensure that there was more advocacy by humanitarian coordinators with again strong data and verified information so that's one of the impact because we've managed to engage the special rapporteur on the right to health who came to Gazianta for a round table the previous one and now we are re-engaging with a new special rapporteur on the right to health she's a specialist on sexual and reproductive health she's from South Africa she's extremely active and very keen to engage so this is one of the example of the impact but broadly we've managed because also of the participation of the HC the deputy regional HC in the human rights reference group and again he participated because he was actually one of those five years ago to call for the creation of such a human rights group because it was addressing a gap so the fact that he's there also raises this profile and through this group we managed to really connect the dots between what we are doing at the inter cluster level with clusters with this integration of human rights but also at the HCT so we have different level of engagement of where we can influence the response I don't know if this was clear enough but very happy to yeah thank you so much that is very useful there was a question in the chat if you can please post the guidance the link to the guidance in the chat the guidance you refer to humanitarian leadership on how to take forward the centrality of protection forward there was also a question in relation to the how do you see the impact of the HCT protection strategy in your context I would suggest Eliza Ulazimir if you have any points on that if you can post it in the chat and in training towards site we have about 3-4 minutes if you can also provide some shed some light on some of the questions over to you yeah thank you Valerie I mean from my side I mean a human rights protection these are all collective outcomes for the whole humanitarian actors to go ahead but I mean for me I still see the structures whether the interagency the coordination systems are not conducive enough to promote such collective outcomes first because we still see the silo effects of clusters working separately and I still see it Ocha is not doing enough to bring everybody to the table and I'm talking here humanitarian coordinators resident coordinators bring everybody to the table how can we have more the common country analysis and HNO integrated with each other and then you agree how the humanitarian development actors can work and work towards these collective outcomes as well as also we are not seeing much emphasis on enabling localized assistance and enabling local actors because they are much more efficient they are much more timely in their response they are much more also committed to to servicing the people all with the time the cluster is always late in terms and there are so many delays because of the structures the current systems do not enable such participation of affected and the crisis affected communities so I see I think there are a number of agendas that are very much linked to human rights localization, accountability to affected population and how much the system is integrating and looking at such a crisis in a more preemptive way more anticipatory where are the risks and who are the ones that will be left behind and who will be at the higher risk I think we are not doing that in a very comprehensive way and we all the time try to improvise things and much of the response sometimes is not based on joint protection risk analysis but more on assumptions that are not well founded so I think that's my reflection on this side there was a question also about the capacity building I mean the human rights engagement team has been rolling out this human rights module we're happy to discuss with you the details of any specific training on any of the international human rights mechanisms and we can reach out to the relevant divisions within OICR to facilitate such training I know we are late but I mean these are just some reflections from my side over Fantastic, thank you so much Saeed and your call for do more do more collectively and be grounded with the local initiatives actors, human rights education empowering local population is well noted I know Dina on the call is for sure very attentively listening and would like to come in but I'm afraid our time is already coming to an end for this exchange very rich exchange extremely interesting I take few action points on our side from this session and thank you Elisa for posting the resource in the chat and actually starting from this very simple point I think we can do better as a human rights engagement task team to bring together the relevant resources actually to start with as a reference point and this is also building block for the next step as I mentioned in follow up to the ODI research paper to support you with some kind of guidance on the so called minimum requirements on collaboration which is also contextualized depending on which operation you are in what are the modalities the position of relevant actors stakeholders etc so those are definitely two points I further also reiterate the point on good practices I think it's never enough we are hearing about good practices but we are struggling sometimes when colleagues say okay but tell me in which country it has worked connect me with colleagues so I also ask colleagues who are online if you have other examples of things that worked out where you have seen impact of such collaboration if you can please proactively reach out to us and we would be very keen to capture those good practices going forward I also think there is a lot we can do and will do on the mainstreaming of stronger human rights approaches throughout the HPC cycle as Elsa also mentioned that it's part of the key components of your work and Dina highlighted in the chat that this is something we are now working on as the global protection cluster human rights engagement task as well as OCHA and UNHCR angle so quite a lot for us to follow up on going forward we will of course not stop here we strongly encourage all colleagues online to take this moment as an opportunity for reflection on how we can further strengthen the collaboration with OCHR in its different shapes and forms don't hesitate to reach out to me or to other colleagues online if you would like to brainstorm further in relation to your specific field context so thank you again very much thanks to all our panelists thanks to Elsa, Saeed, Ulazimir this has been very insightful and interesting colleagues online we will meet again for our next webinar on 13th of December the time will change this time it will be 3 hours earlier so at 11 o'clock Geneva time and it will focus on human rights education so if you are interested stay tuned we will share the same today very soon thank you very much colleagues and to look forward to our further engagement through the human rights engagement task team have a good rest of the day bye thank you


I'm Jay Fidel. This is Sigtekawaii. This is the movie show with George Kasin, and we have a great movie to talk to you about today. It's called Delicious. It's a French movie made in the UK, and it is all about the months and years leading up to the French Revolution. It's very interesting because it is about food, it is about the nobility, it is about the common people, and it is about a specific cook who works for the nobility and gets fired because he puts potatoes in a particular dish, terrible, terrible, terrible. But there's lots to be learned from this movie, and George, why don't you tell us the way the plot unfolds? It starts with this guy, Matt Chiron, who's the cook, the chef. He's the head chef for a duke. He's a head chef for the duke, and you know, he does the standard fare, you know, that the duke wants, right? Then he figures, you know, do a little innovation, you know, he wanted to do a tart, an interesting tart, which he went with truffles, which is very, is it French delicacy, and he put potato in there, and then of course butter and whatever, and it was a good, it was a very tasty thing. So as he's displaying this, and some of the people are eating it, you know, they figured it not bad, and then a cleric, you know, leave it to a cleric to say, oh my god, potato, potato, that's for pigs, right? And then all these arrogant nobles, you know, that are sitting at this table, right, really arrogant, they start laughing about what the cleric has said, pig, pig, pig, and they're all laughing at him.   So lo and behold, a middle-aged woman shows up at his door and wants to be his apprentice, and he initially, he tells her, I don't want to cook anymore. I don't want to do that anymore because he's so traumatized by what this duke that was his boss for so many years, right, and then she's insisting, she's insisting, she's insisting, right, that she wants to do this, and initially he's pushing her away, and pushing her away, and pushing her away, but she's very smart, you know, first, you don't know who she is initially, she, like you like, all the pieces haven't filled, haven't come together yet, but they will eventually, as the movie progresses, right. So eventually she convinces him, even though she's a woman, and even though he doesn't want to do it, she convinces him to start teaching, and as smart as she is, and then he's got a son with him, because his wife passed away after the son was born, he's got a smart kid who reads Rousseau, a very intelligent guy, right, young guy, probably about 20 years old, right. So this woman, she has good ideas, and she says, you know, people go to ends when they're on the trip, when they're traveling, wouldn't it be a good idea if you could set up something where people could come and eat, you know, like out of their house, like Sunday or Sunday afternoon, or Saturday, or for special occasions, so they don't have to cook, because in that day and age, everybody used to cook, you know, at home, and only rarely when they were on a trip would they go to put in and eat, and the in fare was really garbage, it was just crummy soups and maybe bread, not a normal meal, so they only, they didn't have their normal meals, and then his son, who's very smart, says, yeah, yeah, this is, you know, it's like for the public, for everybody, right, not only for the nobles, but for everybody, so we're becoming equality, you know, that this whole age is fighting for equality, so they come up with this idea, and initially they think a lot of these things were a little bit manufactured, because you know that this eventually started in Paris, and not in a rural area, but it wasn't France where it started, and let's have some table clothes and tables and have a menu, and you know, and entrees and appetizers and desserts, so the whole idea of a restaurant, right, was, this is the whole idea of innovation, and he comes a big, big success, major success, and the Duke had hired two or three other people and his wife didn't like them, right away got rid of them, so the Duke, you know, is going to come and come to this, to his rural place, on his way to Paris, right, he's supposed to come, and so the, he, I think, who's the chief of staff of this Duke, comes to the place and says, I want you to set up something for the Duke and his royal helpers, you know, other nobles, and have it at such and such a day, at such and such a time, so initially there was a certain day, and then Diaz Saint, who's the chief of staff, contacts him with a letter and says, you have to do it two days earlier, because the, he's finished with what his duties, and he's going to go earlier, right, so they're knocking themselves out to get this thing together, you know, and they want to make an impression, right, and then when the Duke finally comes and all he's coming, he's coming, the entourage goes right through, and Diaz Saint sends him a letter, I'm sorry that the Duke was hungrier earlier, so we stopped at another in earlier, so all this effort was for nothing, really pissed off, right, but this restaurant for the public becomes a major success, and then the Duke contacts Marsheron, and sort of wants him back, you know, and he, the Marsheron says, so why don't you come and see what's, what's, you know, this is like, and I think that the woman is a dentist and put that in his mind, right, so Marsheron comes and Marsheron says, this, this is only for the nobles, this is not for the public, the public doesn't deserve anything like this, right, but they keep them in open when Marsheron and his wife come, and they have all their other customers come in too, right, so Marsheron is really really really upset, right, that there's other other people there and he's, the Duke is upset, the Duke, excuse me, the Duke is upset, and he's, sorry about that, and he's mouthing off, you know, about how this is ridiculous, and then all the people there in the restaurant, you know, the clients, right, start disagreeing with him, you know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, and the apprentice, this is the thing that I don't know if I want to reveal it now, but the apprentice, she has a plan, right, who is this woman, very elegant, because one of the things Marsheron said to her when she first came, she says, I know, when she started to cook, just I know, I look at your hands, either you were a crawl girl, a prostitute, or you were the wife of a noble, and she, and she lies, and she says that she was a prostitute, and they treated her really, but initially she says that, but eventually we find out that you want me to say that the punchline of who she was, and what it was all about, or should we wait? Let's wait. Okay, so let me join with you now, you know, that was a great rendition, and you do have a fabulous memory, I must say, you remember four details in that in that movie, but let's stop there, and a couple of thoughts I want to bounce off you. Sure. Number one is the movie was tremendous in its values, its production values, its scenery, the inside shots, the outside shots, it's beautiful, everything in the movie is like a painting, and the critics have reviewed it with that in my day of all, you know, uniformly found that this is a beautiful movie, a beautiful movie of France, of the castle, you know, the Duke's castle, of the shanty building that Menceran, you know, creates a restaurant from, and the whole thing is so, I don't want to say faithful, because we don't know how things were, but it paints a beautiful picture of the way life was for them then, in the French countryside. What's ironic about it is that the movie was not made in the French countryside, it was made in Cornwell, England, even though it's shot entirely in French, and that's another point that the French is so good, the actors are so good, both Menceran and Louise, you know, the women who comes to him, and the son, they're all heroes, and they're all such larger than life people, and you get to know them, you get to live with them, and what I find interesting about Menceran is that when he wants to express an emotional reaction, it's so subtle, so understated, the same thing with Louise and the son is understated, there's no overacting in this at all, you have to watch it carefully to see what they're really telling you, and you get to love that big fat guy, he's wonderful, and Louise, you get to love her, even though she's a big question mark, as you said, who is this woman, and the son is so devoted to his father, one reviewer said, this movie has a purity, and the purity goes beyond, I think, the French countryside, it goes beyond the dedication of this cook to his food, the way he lays it out, the way he cuts his produce, the way he creates his dishes, this is an extraordinary cook, and he said, well, there's a lot of movies that are being made these days about food, but this is different than all of those movies about food, this was happening in the 18th century, and people didn't have the same view about food, even the French in those days, and as you said, and I think your research says, because you know that the actual development of restaurants as a way to serve food happened in Paris, not in the countryside, but that's okay, because it may have been happening parallel, we know this is not a true story, but there are so many true elements here, and I think the true is one of all, and I'll stop in a minute, is that we are ramping up into the French Revolution, this is all happening just prior to the French Revolution, and when you see the way the nobility conduct themselves, see how obnoxious they are, and how they treat the common people as lower life people, you realize that what we have here is a real divisive society, and it can't continue this way, and you see it breaking down in this movie, this movie is really a study of France just before the French Revolution, what was happening socially, so food is important, these characters are important, but the biggest thing of all, as you mentioned George, is that the common folk came in, enjoyed the restaurant, were together, and the hell with the duke, the duke became less important all the time, and he was less powerful all the time, what I'm saying, and this is really a very important point about the movie, is that the French Revolution did not happen on juillet cacti, July 14th, and the taking of the best deal, it was happening for a while, it was happening before Marie Antoinette said, let them eat cake, and it's very symbolic for this movie, let them eat cake when they're starving, I guess you remember the scene where the young boys are stealing bread from the cook, and Louise turns in, or maybe his son turns to him and says, they're stealing your bread, aren't you going to try to stop them? And he says, no, no, I want them to take the bread, because I want them to appreciate what I'm doing, and to know that I'm not going to punish them, I want to be at peace with them, and what he's really doing is making a political statement about food and people and the countryside, so what you have here is a view into pre-revolution France, and that is the most interesting thing of all, and the part that we held back on, this extraordinary conversation between Louise and the duke and Montserrat, when it all gets revealed, this is important because this is the kernel of the breakdown of the distinction between the nobility and the common people, this is where they let the duke have it good, so tell us how that went, George. Well, you find out that she really lied to Manchuron, that she was the wife of a noble, right? And the duke, son of a really bad guy, right? Sort of had liked her, right?  So one of the things on this side, when the chief of staff was stopped by the restaurant, right? She hit her face because she figured someone would recognize her, right? So then at the restaurant, when the clientele starts screaming at him, she finally reveals who she is, right? That she's the wife of the duke, and what this duke had done is created all kind of problems for her husband, and she thinks, because he ended up hanging himself, her husband, and she thinks that maybe the duke had her husband hung. So her whole plan was to become an apprentice, so she could poison the guy. She figured, this was her whole plan, because she was so angry, you know, she was going to poison him. So she knows how to do that? Yes. She tried to make poison before, and she, you know, she decided not to do it and threw the food on the ground and wrote the chickens came around and ate the food, and they all turned upside down dead. Exactly. So she knows how to make poison. So the thing is, bottom line here is she reveals herself and she tells the duke, I can poison you. Now you don't know when the movie's ending. Did she really poison him? Did he go back and die, the duke? But he runs out, she pulls off his wig, right?  And this happened three days before the storming of the Bastille, as you were saying. So this was all leading up to the French Revolution, you know, with Marie Antoinette losing her head and the royalty being pulled down, you know. So the movie ends three days before the storming of the Bastille. So when the French built the royalty fell. So really interesting. Unfortunately, you don't know whether she really poisoned him. Well, I think I'd like to revisit that with you. When she tells him who she really is and how she is seeking vengeance against him, he is in the process of eating the food from Ezra. And he spits it out. You know, the notion he spit it out because he thought, you know, she was poisoning him and she had good reason. But she says to him, if you remember, she says, no, I'm not going to poison you. I'm not going to do that to you. Okay. And then we have, you know, a very interesting moment where the woman that he's with and the Duke himself is saying, you are putting us in a restaurant where these lower than low common people are sitting next to him. We can't possibly do that. And that's when she pulls off his wig.  And we don't accept your extravagance and your claim to power. But then, and this is really, really interesting. He says to her and to Mansuron, this is the core of that meeting. He says, I will have you killed. I will have you executed. And he's a Duke. So, you know, possibly he could do that. But then she steps in and she lets him have it. If you want to do that, just threaten us one more time.  She was collecting data on him. She had four or five things that he had done in violation of the, you know, the King's commands. And and she threatened him that she would go to the King and record him and that he would be in big trouble. Okay. And at that moment, the whole thing swings around because she said, when she tells him that he is stupefied and he has no answer. And he has no wig on either.  And that Duke or no Duke, he no longer has the power. She has undone him. She has completely pulled the rug out from under him. And he can't assassinate or, you know, execute Mansuron. He can't stop the restaurant. He can't stop the local people from coming in and eating. He's finished. And he walks out in, you know, embarrassment and humiliation with and without a wig. She's just an ordinary, an ordinary guy at that point. And so, you know, that's what I was saying before. The revolution didn't happen in one fell swoop. It was happening. And this was an example of a woman talking back to him. And some of the nobility would talk to other members of the nobility. And they would point out that, you know, it's not sustainable. You have to stop doing this. And so it's perfect that three days later, you know, we have the fall of the best deal. But the Duke was done. She did him. And then Mansuron realizes what a wonderful woman she is that she has this kind of strength that she could deal with the nobility and tell him where to get off. And that is a really wonderful moment in the movie. It just blew me away. You remember some of these details? I guess I got caught up in visual and didn't listen to the words. But you know, this is a very good movie for what's happening today. I mean, you know that here in America and all around the world, you've got more and more super wealthy people. And the gap between the wealthy and the not so wealthy is broadening constantly. So we're going back to an age like before FDR, you know, before the gilded age that we saw the movie, The Gilded Age, where you have the very wealthy. And then the middle class is deteriorating and losing. You know, I mean, a lot of the kids today, they can't even reach their parents level of comfort and affluence, right? So we've got the broadening. So it's sort of a lesson for today too. I mean, there's a lesson to what's happening in America and even in Europe and around the world with the super wealthy. Yeah, but I think, you know, when we first spoke about this movie, George, you told me you were impressed with it because it showed innovation. And here we have, and I think it was beyond Mansuron. It was happening in other places, especially in Paris. A guy named Boulanger had invented a restaurant in 1825. You must have done the same research I did. And this movie was set in 1789. But in that period of time, the French were realizing that their, you know, their culture was inextricably intertwined with food and with restaurants. And, you know, this was a step forward that they still enjoy today. This was the development of the French culture around eating and food and preparation of food and exquisite dishes and lots of butter, I might add. And he talks about butter and food. But so what you have is in Mansuron, you have a person, he's kind of quiet. You know, he's not, when he's in charge of a kitchen, he barks commands. But as an individual in this relationship with his son with Louise and others around, he's kind of quiet. He's an observer. He's a fair-minded observer. And he's seeing these things happen. He's observing. And if you want to look for a lesson, there is a lesson. This guy is an everyman. He's not a nobility by any means. He's just watching the change in France. He's watching the change in food. And he's being motivated by Louise, who is, you know, incentivizing him and encouraging him to get back and out of his depression and, you know, into what he was born for. So what they're really, what they're really doing, I think, is they're observers. They're fair-minded observers to the changes in France. And as a couple, as a team, a three-person team, I should add, because they're all contributing to the innovation. They're all contributing to making him the great cook that he was born to be. They are, you know, they're giving us a model to follow today. A model of watching and participating and breaking down the division, you know, between the nobility, even today's nobility, and the ordinary people. And I think we learned from that. We learned that there's a way to observe and participate and innovate to bring the various factions together. And that's what this movie, to me, that's what it leaves us with. His son was reading in Rousseau, you know, so a lot of political treatise, you know, so the son was really right on top of what was going on right before the best deal, right. So the son was a smart kid, you know. Now remember the early in the movie, his son was using a library in the Duke's castle. And the Duke caught him. And he can't use the library.  We don't want you reading. And then he made other comments about the food. They said you people, you can't appreciate good food. You have no idea what good food is. And you'll never know. And it's up to us, the nobility, to know. And we are the only ones who can appreciate the reading, the library, so to speak, and the food and the cooking.  What is this guy saying? Can he get away with that answer? No. And you're right. The boy was a statement of the future. So was Mansuron. So was Louise, all statements of the future. This is what France was going to be like. And the boy was certainly going to be an activist, a reader, a thinker, a philosopher, a great character. They were all great characters. And I admire, you know, whoever selected them for the movie. This was the acting was excellent. And you had to stretch your neck to find out what was really going on. You had to stretch your neck to figure out what they were thinking and why. And you had to follow the action. I told you before, the best literature and the best moviemaking is when the character changes in front of your eyes. And all three of them changed, including the mystery woman Louise. She also changed. You admire them as individuals. You would admire them for their contribution to the French society. What would you give this, what would you give this as a rating, George? I give it a 10 because of the historical aspects of it. The acting, the beautiful scenery. In every respect, I thought that it's hitting a lot of good 10 points. So I'll give it a 10. Really liked it. Yeah, I would too. And I wait for more movies like this. It's a statement of how good a French movie can be. It's a statement of how non-violent. It was never violence in the movie. Threats maybe, but no violence. And it was a head trip this movie. It was a historical, I wouldn't say documentary, but a statement of the history of France and the history of the 18th century. So this is the kind of movie I really like. And I hope we see more of them. And some people may look at this movie on a one-dimensional basis and say, oh, another cooking movie, another movie about food. No, that's not it. That's not it. It's much more than that.  So that was a little tidbit for people with my dietary choices, right? But I still enjoyed him making with the, you know, he would make the eggs and he would put the butter and with his hands, you know, they showed his hands, you know, cooking. It's similar to when we were, we watched the pig movie where you had that famous chef that went out into the woods, right? And you could tell from the way he was handling his hands with the cooking truffles. You knew that he was a master chef. Same thing with nonchalant, you know, just showing his hand movements as a chef. Interesting. Really interesting. Interesting to focus on food in that way. It's a cultural, philosophical, you know, way. And it also points out that we are in a time, perhaps, you know, in a, you know, a pivotal time when food may not be as plentiful as it used to be. And so all these movies are really saying, you know, you got to appreciate every little morsel. Don't take it for granted. Well, thank you, George. We'll find another one in a couple of weeks. But I think we, we've had a good one this time. And we have a good track of appreciating these movies. And I really appreciate, you know, you watching them and remembering the details and researching them. And we'll do it again soon. Thank you, Jay. Thank you, George. George Casey. Movie reviewer par excellence. Jay also par excellence. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.