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Strengthening Human Rights Mechanisms

Enhance capacity of State institutions in Commonwealth member countries to promote, monitor and protect human rights.

The Human Rights Unit (HRU) provides advice, training and other forms of technical assistance to governments to strengthen their National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI) as well as build capacity within relevant ministries, agencies and departments in mainstreaming human rights, identifying and responding to human rights issues.

The aim is to enhance the capacity of these institutions to monitor human rights issues, handle complaints, investigate cases of human rights violations, and network with other government branches, the civil society sector and the media, other Commonwealth NHRIs and other NHRI forums, regional bodies and the UN human rights system.

The HRU developed 'Best Practice Principles for National Human Rights Institutions in the Commonwealth', which covered aspects such as the process involved in creating, appointing and administering national bodies to promote and protect human rights, powers and mandate, their role in conflict resolution, accessibility to the general public and relationship with other institutions.

The Best Practice Principles have been accepted and used by a number of Commonwealth countries in the establishment and strengthening of their national human rights bodies. The lack of human rights expertise has been identified to be one of the factors affecting the work of these institutions in the Commonwealth. The Guidelines have also been used by the UN-OHCHR in its work with NHRIs.

For information on Commonwealth Countries in the Human Rights Council, click here.

Commonwealth Conference of National Human Rights Institutions, London, 26-28 February 2007

In an historic outcome, the Conference members agreed among themselves to establish a Forum of Commonwealth NHRIs. Underpinning the Conference had been the fact that whilst individual Commonwealth NHRIs meet and share information on an ad hoc basis, no distinct forum presently exists for their interaction, as a collective, with Commonwealth Heads of Government. Since the end of the British Council project for Commonwealth NHRIs, there is no systematic mechanism for institutional advocacy, information exchange and for cooperation on matters of joint interest and concern. The idea behind the Forum is to ensure that shared values, information and experiences are reflected and channelled into a single formal mechanism which will in turn increase interactions between institutions and governments and raise standards of human rights protection. The Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation conference was assisted with a contribution from the Rights and Democracy group of Canada. Over 40 commissioners and senior officials from the participating institutions attended the conference. Other organisations including the UN, Asia Pacific Forum for National Human Rights Institutions, ECOWAS and the British Council were also represented. It is the first major gathering of Commonwealth NHRIs since the last meeting held in 2000.

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