The institutional turn of international human rights law and its reception by state administrations in developing countries

The project addresses national human rights systems and the domestic institutional turn of human rights through studying mechanisms of coordination of human rights implementation at state level. The focus is directed at National Human Rights Institutions, National Human Rights Plans of Action and focal points.

The research makes apparent and critically analyses the emergent standards pertaining to the distribution of responsibilities and interactions among public administrations; and explore how in practice developing countries are reshaping their administrations to implement human rights commitments.

The research project led to the submission of a PhD thesis in October 2019, which was successfully defended at the University of Copenhagen on 27 February 2020.

The thesis was evaluated by a committee consisting of:

• Professor Mikael Rask Madsen, University of Copenhagen
• Professor Rachel Murray, University of Bristol, United Kingdom
• Professor Mark Goodale, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

The research was supervised by Professor Morten Broberg, University of Copenhagen, and Dr. Stéphanie Lagoutte, Danish Institute for Human Rights.