JURJ

Effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions under Paris Principles

Author: Ankur Sharma

Abstract:

This article seeks to examine how helpful the Paris Principles are in evaluating the effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions. These principles are the core guidelines for establishment of effective NHRIs in terms of performance on the mandate. Some greater contemplation now needs to be given to a range of issues that make these institutions effective and to raise question on the essential presumptions on which the Paris Principles are based. National human rights institutions are of many types. Efforts to measure the effectiveness of these different types of set ups require to take into consideration of such variations. NHRIs can be classified in terms of their structure, composition, mandate and the politico-legal environment within which these institutions operate. They can be distinguished between single and multi-member NHRIs, those advising government on issues of policy and those handling individual complaints, those having broad mandate to work for all generations of human rights and those limited and focused to only certain human rights. While assessing the performance and efficacy of these institutions, distinctions of the organizational structure and the mandate of these institutions should be kept in mind. Furthermore, the conditions of operations and resources are different for each NHRI and the assessment should take into account all these factors.