Role Of National Human Rights Institutions Research Articles

National Human Rights Institutions: The Missing Link in Business and Human Rights Governance?

Abstract In 2014, the United Nations established a working group to elaborate an international treaty on business and human rights. In October 2018, negotiations on a first draft of the actually text took place. Besides this zero-draft, the working group released the draft text of an Optional Protocol containing several institutional arrangements. The Optional Protocol carves out a key role for national implementation mechanisms to promote compliance with, monitor and implement the treaty on business and human rights. With such an institutional arrangement, the future treaty would join the ranks of what can be called a new generation of human right treaties which institutionalize a top down with a bottom up approach aiming to address the disjuncture between rules and practice. The Optional Protocol indicates that this role of national implementation mechanism could be taken up by National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). This follows an increased recognition of NHRIs as significant actors in the business and human rights domain. Yet, the role of NHRIs in human rights governance in general, and in the business and human rights field in particular, is not yet well understood and undertheorized. The aim of this article is to add insight into the role of NHRIs in business and human rights by, first, describing some of the current activities undertaken by NHRIs in this field in order to analyze whether the role ascribed to them is actually being taken up and what challenges NHRIs face. From this perspective, it will be discussed whether the role foreseen in the Optional Protocol of the future business and human rights treaty holds promise.

Guaranteeing Access to Remedies for Business-Related Human Rights Abuses: Role of NHRIs

This paper considers the contribution to remediation of business-related human rights abuses of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). Section 2 considers definitions of “remedy” under human rights law, and under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), and how NHRIs can contribute to remedy so defined. Section 3 explores how far NHRIs have contributed to remediating business-related human rights abuses in practice, both through the exercise of formal legal powers, and through third-party mobilisation and agenda setting, drawing on cross-regional examples. Section 4 concludes. An Annex briefly reviews how NHRIs’ mandate and scope to provide remedy for human rights and business issues has been interpreted via the ICC, the UNGPs and other international and regional human rights bodies.

Statelessness and the Role of National Human Rights Institutions

Statelessness is a global human rights problem that affects more than 10 million people today. The very existence of statelessness is at odds with a fundamental human rights norm: the right of everyone to a nationality. But the link between statelessness and human rights goes deeper than this because stateless people are extremely vulnerable to further, cumulative human rights violations. Despite the significance of statelessness as a human rights issue, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees – whose Office is mandated by the General Assembly to help states to respond to statelessness – recently observed that it is “one of the most forgotten areas of the global human rights agenda”. However, over the last few years in particular, there has been a considerable and irrefutable increase in interest in statelessness from a wide range of stakeholders – including intergovernmental organisations, national governments, global and regional human rights supervisory bodies, NGOs, legal practitioners and academics. This study seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the current engagement of human rights actors on statelessness. More specifically, it explores the following question: To what extent are National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) engaged in the issue of statelessness and what does this engagement consist of? The report identifies areas of common interest in the work of NHRIs on statelessness and presents a number of examples of concrete activities undertaken by NHRIs in this area to date. With a view to encouraging and facilitating more effective engagement by NHRIs on statelessness, the report also reflects on opportunities for supporting and perhaps expanding the role of NHRIs in tackling statelessness.

The European Union and National Human Rights Institutions

Over the past twenty years, the potential of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) to transmit and implement international norms at the domestic level, and to transfer human rights expertise to regional and global human rights forums, is increasingly recognised. At a time when the European Union is looking for a more coherent and strategic human rights policy, it is important that policy makers and academics pay more attention to the potential role of NHRIs. This paper aims to highlight opportunities for a more structured cooperation between the EU and NHRIs in a variety of internal and external human rights domains. NHRIs do not replace other stakeholders in the field of human rights and will not always be the most appropriate partner for the EU. However, consistent consideration for NHRIs in the different areas of its human rights policy can help the EU to more effectively deal with various challenges it faces today, ranging from an enhanced outreach at the UN Human Rights Council to the fulfilment of EU citizens’ information needs with regard to fundamental rights and legal remedies. The current EU’s engagement with NHRIs reflects a critical disjuncture between the approach towards NHRIs internally and externally. In order to strengthen its fundamental rights architecture internally, and to enhance the credibility of its external human rights policy and action, the EU should encourage and support EU Member States to establish effectively functioning NHRIs which are in compliance with the Paris Principles. This way, the EU’s engagement concerning the establishment and support of Paris Principles compliant NHRIs in third states will be backed up by its internal initiatives.

Article 33(2) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Another Role for National Human Rights Institutions?

This article concerns Article 33(2) of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD or Convention) which provides that States should designate or establish one or more independent mechanisms to promote, protect and monitor the implementation of the Convention taking into account the Paris Principles. It analyses the content of Article 33(2) with a view to determining if national human rights institutions (NHRIs) should be designated independent mechanisms. The article adopts a two-pronged approach by explaining the functions of NHRIs and by evaluating their suitability to play the role of independent mechanisms. After explaining the importance of national monitoring, the article discusses the Paris Principles and the role of NHRIs and examines whether these institutions should exercise the functions of independent mechanisms. It also deals with cooperation between these mechanisms and the other actors mentioned in Article 33. Finally, the article analyses the consequences for NHRIs of the reference to the Paris Principles in Article 33(2) of CRPD.

Africa's National Human Rights Institutions and the Responsibility to Protect

AbstractThe essay argues that one of the greatest shifts in the international humanitarian order heralded by the end of the Cold War has been the concept of holding state sovereignty accountable to an international human rights standard. It argues that while the concept of R2P has generally focused on humanitarian intervention at a macro level, the period since the 1990s has also witnessed an increase of micro-level institutions, in the form of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) that can advance R2P, including 31 such institutions in Africa. NHRIs can potentially bolster R2P and foster peace in countries in which they operate. The general popularity of R2P as an international standard is contrasted with the great suspicion with which it is regarded by a number of governments—particularly in Africa, where sovereignty is guarded with passion as a result of the anticolonial struggles that gave birth to national independence on the continent. The author further argues that NHRIs—when properly institutionalised and functioning optimally—can play an important role in protecting the rights of vulnerable groups, and have the potential to help countries attain international human rights norms and standards without unduly threatening their sovereign independence. The essay examines the role of NHRIs in the four cases of Sierra Leone, Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa, and assesses the establishment and operation of African NHRIs using measures formulated by the internationally agreed Paris Principles of 1993.

National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Toward the Institutionalization and Developmentalization of Human Rights

The article discusses the importance of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) in promoting and protecting economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCRs). Every effort needs to be made by NHRIs to ensure that ESCRs are not neglected by the state. There is need for greater interaction between the NHRIs and state agencies to address the potential violations of ESCRs that the state and nonstate actors may be committing by way of their policies or lack of policies. The article argues that the NHRIs need to operationalize their programs, including the processes relating to investigation of allegations of human rights violations and examination of policies and actions by government agencies, in a manner that takes full account of the implementation of ESCRs. This involves at various levels a fundamental reexamination of the role of NHRIs, particularly when the enabling legislation, constitution of a particular country, the courts, and other legal institutions have not previously supported the notion of NHRIs engaging in the promotion and protection of ESCRs.