Sub-National Human Rights Institutions and Transgovernmental Networks

Abstract

Transgovernmental networks have played a prominent role in the evolution and development of national human rights institutions (‘NHRIs’) by promoting cooperation, best practices, and engagement at the international level, and providing NHRIs with legitimacy through the accreditation process. The role that transgovernmental networks play in the development of sub-national human rights institutions (‘SNHRIs’), however, has yet to be examined. This article attempts to fill this gap by comparing networking patterns of national and sub-national human rights institutions. This article concludes that while SNHRIs are able to derive certain benefits from their membership in ombudsman associations, they are currently missing out on many of the other benefits that NHRIs derive from their membership in the International Coordinating Committee for National Institutions for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (‘ICC’) and its affiliated networks. This article therefore proposes that the ICC establish a separate membership category for SNHRIs, with membership conditioned on compliance with a set of principles based on the Paris Principles, but revised so as to be applicable to sub-national bodies.