Commonwealth meeting to spearhead human rights issues

More than 40 commissioners and senior officials from across the Commonwealth are due to meet in London next week to deliberate promotion and protection of human rights issues.

Secretary-General Don McKinnon will inaugurate the three-day meeting, which starts on 26 February 2007, at the Commonwealth Secretariat's headquarters in Marlborough House.

The forum will bring together participants from international organisations including the United Nations and national human rights institutions (NHRIs) from Commonwealth countries.

"The main objective of the conference is to strengthen capacity and promote the network of national human rights institutions in the Commonwealth, review their activities and determine how to strengthen them," said Rabab Fatima, Head of the Secretariat's Human Rights Unit, which is organising the event.

Participants at the meeting will examine challenges facing NHRIs and discuss developments and best practices in the Commonwealth that are in line with the UN Paris Principles on National Human Rights Institutions.

These 2001 'Commonwealth's Best Practices on NHRIs' cover the processes involved in establishing national bodies to promote and protect human rights. They also focus on organisations' powers and mandates, their role in conflict resolution, accessibility to the general public and their relationships with other institutions.

Some 35 Commonwealth member countries have human rights institutions in place either in form of commissions or offices of ombudsmen.

Currently, over 63 national and regional institutions in the Commonwealth deal with human rights-related issues.

The conference, supported by the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation, is partly sponsored by Rights and Democracy, a Canadian non-governmental organisation.

Secretariat Links:

• Human Rights
• Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC)

Related Websites:

• UN Human Rights