DIHR leads pioneering research on governmental human rights actors
How effective are governments in driving human rights implementation?
This question was the offset for a wide network of researchers, spearheaded by the Danish Institute for Human Rights. They joined forces to analyse the role and function of governmental human rights focal points.
“Governmental focal points are a cornerstone in human rights implementation efforts. But the existing international guidance is fragmented, incomplete and lacks coherence. There was a need in terms of approaching them as a singular phenomenon. In that way we were able to better inform their role,” says Sébastien Lorion, PhD and senior adviser at the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
Since the 1970s, many states have established thematic structures for human rights, and since the 1990s, these structures have been covering all human rights.
Human rights organisations have untiredly recommended that governmental human rights actors are established in every country as a mechanism to put human rights into practice. New treaties oblige states to appoint focal points or coordination mechanisms at national level with dedicated civil servants working with the implementation of human rights.
Six core attributes come across in existing guidance as ideal features of all governmental human rights focal points, according to researchers from the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
Governmental human rights focal points (GHRFP) shall:
(1) be government-based arrangements
(2) have an explicit human rights mandate
(3) make other actors work and not directly implement policies
(4) accumulate and ‘translate’ specialised knowledge on rights
(5) be permanent structures
(6) have professional staff and rational administrative routines.
Today, every country in the world has one or more governmental entities dedicated to human rights work, the so-called governmental human rights focal points.
Governmental human rights focal points can be organised in many ways: As human rights ministries, National mechanisms for reporting and follow-up, inter-ministerial delegations or thematic focal points. 32 countries have a ministry with a human rights portfolio.
Scholars and practitioners fill the research gap together
However, governmental human rights focal points fall into an academic blind-spot. There is no unified set of international principles or guidance that encapsulate the essence of the governmental human rights focal points, in part out of respect for states’ sovereignty over institutional choices. Only limited research has been conducted so far, or ensued in silos, focusing on specific types of focal points.
We wanted to find out if governments’ work with human rights trickles down. Does the state implement human rights recommendations for the benefit of the citizens?
Researchers from the Danish Institute for Human Rights in cooperation with researchers from Switzerland, Ireland, South Africa, Colombia and Denmark were on that backdrop keen to set up a theoretical framework for understanding these specific human rights bodies. The research team wanted to “open the black box” of the human rights administrations by looking at the operations in practice.
Building on earlier research by the Danish Institute for Human Rights on the domestic institutionalisation of human rights and national human rights systems , the two-year research project aimed at laying the ground for an academic research agenda on the role of governmental actors in human rights implementation.
Governmental and still trustworthy?
According to the researchers, human rights focal points are raising a dilemma: Can you trust a human rights body, when it is part of the state? When the entity is governmental and not independent?
“It is an ambivalent structure, since it is part of the government,” says Sébastien Lorion. “The overall political will, as well as resources and staff will to a large extent define the level of progressiveness for the governmental human rights focal points. Bureaucratic dynamics and the behaviour of civil servants in localising and translating international standards also define the effect.”
The human rights focal points are normally concealed to the eyes of external researchers. But our research was lucky to build upon decades of cooperation projects and partnerships established between the Danish Institute for Human Rights and governmental focal points in various countries. In that way they got an understanding of how governmental human rights focal points and their civil servants navigate their ambivalent position.
“Our research about governmental focal points is closely linked to the international work of the Danish Institute for Human Rights and their involvement in actual human rights implementation,” tells Stéphanie Lagoutte, Dr. PhD in law and senior researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights.
“In our research we are interested in the national level because we wanted to find out if governments’ work with human rights trickles down. Does the state implement human rights recommendations for the benefit of the citizens?”
In June 2021 the pioneer research from the Danish Institute for Human Rights was accepted in a dedicated Special Issue of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights.
Output of research inquiry on Governmental Human Rights Focal Points:
- Panel at the 2020 Conference of the Association of Human Rights Institutes – presentation of case studies
- Comprehensive study: “Defining governmental human rights focal points: Practice, guidance and concept” (also available in French and Spanish)
- Special Issue of the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights: “Understanding Governmental Human Rights Focal Points”
Relevant past projects:
- 2019 Special Issue of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights :“The Domestic Institutionalisation of Human Rights”
- 2020 PhD dissertation of Sébastien Lorion: “The institutional turn of international human rights law and its reception by state administrations in developing countries”