What are some challenges to the effectiveness of NHRIs?
Details about this content
Target group: Human rights professionals
Languages: English
Developed by: The Danish Institute for Human Rights. Content from other reliable sources
Research on NHRI effectiveness
The research on what makes NHRIs effective is an emerging field, which has moved from asking: “How can we make NHRIs more effective?” to: “What do we know about NHRI effectiveness?"
Though research in this field is still few, and there are representation and evidence gaps, a 2018 report from the Danish Institute for Human Rights finds that four elements seem particularly important to make NHRIs effective:
- Public legitimacy
- Complaint-handling role
- National inquiries (the mandate to investigate and publish reports)
- Formal institutional safeguards (to protect the NHRI against external pressures or threats)
Another study from 2005 by the International Council on Human Rights Policy provides insights into how NHRIs can measure their effectiveness. It also establishes measurement benchmarks and indicators, as well as minimum normative conditions that are desirable for NHRIs to achieve their objectives. The benchmarks are divided into those related to: The character of the institution, its mandate and its accountability.
Some of the dilemmas that NHRIs face are about striking a balance between being an adviser to the government while at the same time being the watchdog. Another is the fact the most NHRIs are both independent from and dependent on the state.
Balancing the adviser and adversarial roles
One challenge is to strike the balance between being an adviser to the government while at the same time scrutinising and sometimes criticising it:
- If the NHRI moves too much into the adviser role and becomes too close to the government, the NHRI will lose its legitimacy, especially in the eyes of human rights victims and other actors.
- If the NHRI becomes too loud and too much of an adversary to the government, the NHRI may appear strong, but in reality it may not have a lot of influence as the government stops listening.
This challenge is related to one of the other challenges that most NHRIs face, namely independence.
Independence from and dependence on the state
As stated in the Paris Principles, NHRIs should be independent from the state in terms of policies, administration, how it spends its funds etc. At the same time, most NHRIs are more or less fully funded by the state, which means that they are in reality financially dependent on the state.
This means that NHRIs need to act independently of the state while at the same time recognising that the survival of the NHRI is dependent on the state.
This video discusses the challenge of NHRI independence.The video was produced by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission in their position as Chair of the Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions.
In this video, different experts, and representatives from the Asia Pacific region describe the importance of independence for a National Human Rights Institution. The video has been created by The Asia Pacific Forum (APF).
You can learn more about effectiveness and challenges in the resources below.
Online resources
Lessons from research on National Human Rights Institutions (2018), DIHR
Assessing the effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions (2005), ICHRP
Capacity assessment manual for national human rights institutions (2014), APF
The unique position of national human rights institutions: a mixed blessing? (2006), Anne Smith
NHRIs’ independence and accountability (2013), DIHR
Continue your introduction to NHRIs
This is part 4 in a series with the purpose of giving an introduction to NHRIs. The different parts can stand on their own, but we recommend you follow the sequence indicated below to get the full introduction.