In 2020, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN-OHCHR), in search for real examples in the field that can guide stakeholders can learn lessons from, started to collect best practice initiatives where non-state actors have filled the gap effectively. In particular, examples were sought where actors made effective interventions to protect economic, social and cultural rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups – which include existing groups and newly marginalized ones. These examples have been collected in the Crowdsourcing Database. Examples collected are those that either i) protect vulnerable groups that would have been left behind otherwise; ii) protect (a) human right(s) that were not addressed sufficiently; and/or iii) take innovative approach in addressing (an) affected human right(s).　The University of Tokyo’s International Law Training and Research Hub (UOTIL Hub) has partnered with the UN-OHCHR, and worked on the collection of best practices in Asia, and submitted a brief report to the UN-OHCHR on the analyses of collected examples from Asia, for its use at the Human Rights Council’s 46th session.

In the process of collecting best practice examples, the UOTIL Hub team was highly impressed by various creative, innovative approaches that have been taken by a wide range of actors. In following up on ten of the selected cases to learn more details about them, UOTIL Hub team felt that mere collection of best practices as data would not suffice to deliver human stories of those who have been fighting to provide much needed protection in the field.

This seminar aims to convey some of the real human stories from the Hub’s collection of practices, as well as the Hub team’s summary findings. This seminar aims to exhibit how non-state stakeholders came up with novel ways to lessen the health, economic, and social burdens of this unprecedented pandemic on the most vulnerable groups in society. It hopes to enrich debates on the value of using a human rights perspective in formulating frameworks for emergency response.