1.2.9 NHRIs and UNCTs
UN Country Teams’ work is generally guided by the universal obligations and aspirations contained in the UN Charter and UN human rights treaties. Like NHRIs themselves, UNCTs also work with many entities – State institutions, civil society, the international community and relevant stakeholders – in order to ensure respect for human rights, justice and the rule of law. As one Country Team member observed during meetings for the preparation of this Toolkit, respect for and observance of human rights is a general responsibility for all UNCT staff. Indeed, UNCTs have been mandated to promote and protect human rights. There are two key rationales for this mandate:
1. Since the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action was adopted, there has been an increased recognition of the need to advance human rights at the country level. Likewise, at the Millennium Summit, the Millennium Assembly committed to strengthening countries’ capacities for promoting respect for human rights.
2. The Secretary-General’s 2002 report on UN reform emphasised the need to strengthen the UN-system wide support to assist countries in advancing human rights at home with a special focus on NHRIs.15 The High Level Panel on UN System Wide Coherence further captures these ideas by recommending that RC/HC and UNCTs be held accountable and better equipped to support countries in their efforts to protect and promote human rights.
Thus, ‘‘UN Country Teams should become major partners at the country level in these endeavours and … develop partnerships with NHRIs, especially those compliant with the Paris Principles … in the areas of the rule of law, good governance and human rights.”
In doing so, UNCTs must apply the following five inter-related principles at the country level:
1. A human rights-based approach (HRBA)
2. Gender Equality
3. Environmental Sustainability
4. Results-based management (RBM)
5. Capacity development16
Capacity development, in particular, has been recognised as a key UN strategic contribution at the country level. The UN system has been mandated to support capacity development at the country level by both the 2007 Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review and the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness.17 The principle of capacity development goes beyond the logic of merely sharing experiences or assisting NHRIs with specific tasks: rather, it signifies a more sustainable UNCT contribution aimed at developing the internal capacities of NHRIs at the individual, institutional and societal levels.
Source: Annual Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General. Report of the Secretary-General on National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. 14 January 2008.
NHRIs can perform a number of roles that complement the work of UNCTs, namely:
- Serve as country partners to advance the promotion and protection of human rights at the national level and can facilitate interaction with Government, Parliament, and civil society.
- Ensure that international norms are incorporated into domestic law and practice.
- Address gaps in the national human rights protection system, especially the justice system.
- Support peace-building strategies in post-conflict situations where the NHRI is identified as an actor in a treaty or peace agreement.
- UNCTs need to understand how to raise human rights issues and NHRI issues programmatically, depending on the programme cycles and related steps for project development in the UN system. They can be inspired in doing so by referring to existing recommendations made by UN international human rights mechanisms, such as the Treaty Bodies, Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review.
- In the course of the development of the Common Country Assessment, UNCT staff should assess the need for an NHRI, or assess the effectiveness of the NHRI (in countries that have one), depending on the situation, as a standard part of the assessment and analysis of the development and human rights situations.
- In the course of contributing to the UN Development Assistance Framework and in-country programming processes, UNCTs should develop a common platform for interventions, when asked by the country to do so, as a standard part of the assessment and analysis of the development.
E-Discussion. Final Summary of E-Discussion: “The Role of UN Agencies and UN Country Teams in Supporting National Human Rights Institutions”. An excellent resource for learning about NHRIs from the UNCT perspective is E. Filmer-Wilson’s 27 March 2008 synthesis of the HuriTALK.
15 Strengthening the United Nations: An Agenda for Further Change, UN GAOR, 57th Sess., UN Doc. A/57/387 (2002).
17 See Triennial Comprehensive Policy Review of Operational Activities for Development of the United Nations, UN GAOR, 62d Sess., UN Doc. A/C.2/62/L.63 (2007); Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.