Dates
Round Five: 27 August - 28 August 2025
Round Six: 26 November - 27 November 2025
Application Deadline
20 August 2025
eCourse: Mainstreaming the Right to Development in Voluntary National Review Reporting
Introduction
The United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in 2015 resulted in the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a global plan to replace the Millennium Development Goals. This agenda aims to achieve sustainable development for all and includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets to be achieved by 2030.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the University for Peace are jointly offering an online workshop comprising two half-day sessions (3 hours each) to train stakeholders on Mainstreaming the Right to Development in Voluntary National Review (VNR) Reporting for realizing the Sustainable Development Goals.
About the Interactive Module
Modalities
Lead Instructor
Course Fee and Application Procedure
Modalities
Modalities
The workshop will be led by an instructor, joined by invited experts, and will be delivered over a period of 2 half-days on 27-28 August 2025 and 26-27 November 2025, to around 100 participants involved in the preparation, elaboration or review of the VNRs, including representatives from Governments, the UN system, NGOs, NHRIs, academia, students and others. It will involve examination of case studies to identify good practices on different dimensions of operationalizing and mainstreaming the RTD in VNRs. Participants successfully attending the full workshop will receive a certificate from the organizers.
Lead Instructor
Lead Instructor
Dr. Mihir Kanade (India) is the Academic Coordinator of the University for Peace, the Head of its Department of International Law, and the Director of the UPEACE Human Rights Centre. Dr. Kanade also serves as the academic co-coordinator of the LLM programme in Transnational Crime and Justice and the LLM programme in Cybercrime, Cybersecurity and International Law offered jointly with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), Turin, Italy. He is also the co-coordinator of the MA in International Law and Diplomacy, and the MA in International Law and the Settlement of Disputes, offered jointly with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
Dr. Kanade currently serves as an independent expert of the United Nations Human Rights Council as a member of the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development representing the Asia-Pacific region. He chaired the drafting group of international experts appointed by the United Nations for elaborating the “Draft International Covenant on the Right to Development” currently before the UN General Assembly for its consideration and adoption. Dr. Kanade co-leads an e-learning project of UPEACE in partnership with the OHCHR for training UN staff, diplomats of permanent missions of States, staff of NGOs and academics on operationalizing the Right to Development in Implementation of the SDGs. He also delivers an online workshop on Mainstreaming the Right to Development in Voluntary National Review Reporting for Realizing SDGs, as part of the joint project between UPEACE and OHCHR.
He has served on the International Advisory Board of the International Bar Association on the topic of Business and Human Rights. He has taught as a visiting faculty at several universities around the world including Universidad de Los Andes (Bogota, Colombia), Cheikh Anta Diop University (Dakar, Senegal), Universidad Alfonso X El Sabio (Madrid, Spain), Centre for Human Rights of the Pretoria University (Pretoria, South Africa) and Long Island University (United States). He is a member of the Editorial Board of several journals such as the ISIL Yearbook of International Humanitarian and Refugee Law, and Ambedkar Path International Research Journal.
His principal area of academic research and study is the interface between governance, public international law, human rights, and development, covering several themes including trade, business and investment, sustainable development, forced displacement of people, indigenous peoples’ rights, public health, amongst others. Prior to academia, Dr. Kanade practiced for six years as a lawyer at the Bombay High Court (Nagpur and Bombay benches) and at the Supreme Court of India. He holds an LL.B. from Nagpur University (India) and a Master degree and Doctorate from UPEACE.
Course Fee and Application Procedure
Who Should Apply?
The workshop is intended for staff members of governmental, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental organizations, development practitioners, human rights practitioners and defenders, academics, students, and others engaged in the preparation, elaboration or review of VNRs.
Course Fee
This course is offered free of cost.
Application Procedure
To enrol, candidates must fill up the application form at https://forms.office.com/r/YM1rdC9k9B. The deadline for submission of applications is 20 August 2025.
Candidates will be selected on the basis of merit taking into account professional, regional, and gender diversity.
For any additional information, please write to hrc@upeace.org.
Brochure
