Key Messages

• NHRIs exist in a dynamic tension between right-holders and duty-bearers, offering a neutral and ideally objective space in which to interact and exchange ideas in a constructive way.
• Promotion and protection responsibilities are intertwined and mutually reinforcing.

• NHRIs have a critical role in investigations, monitoring, and receiving complaints and making recommendations to prevent future human rights abuses.
• Public inquiries are an additional role for NHRIs.

• NHRIs should promote human rights. NHRIs must assist in the formulation and delivery of education initiatives to publicise human rights and to increase public awareness.
• NHRIs inform people of the human rights they enjoy. They also encourage States and the public at large to understand rights and that these rights must be respected.
• The range and scope of promotional activities possible are limited only by the mandates and structures as well as the creativity of the institution itself, and that of its staff, and by available finances.
• NHRIs have a general responsibility to advise States institutions, including executive government, Parliament, the judiciary, and any other competent bodies on human rights matters, including the domestic application of international human rights law.
• National institutions are uniquely positioned to facilitate and enable all stakeholders in human rights to come together and, where appropriate, to cooperate in of enhancing human rights protection.

• The Paris Principles state that NHRIs should consult with other bodies responsible for human rights protection and promotion. This includes cooperation with NHRIs of other countries.
• The Paris Principles state that NHRIs should “cooperate with the United Nations and any other organization in the United Nations system”. This particular function has evolved considerably over the years and includes cooperation with international human rights mechanisms.
• NHRIs are well suited to participate in the international human rights system for the promotion and protection of human rights.
• NHRIs may play an instrumental role in collaborating with the special procedures in relation to the organization of country visits, communications, and follow-up to recommendations, as well as in support of nominations of mandate holders and information and outreach.
• NHRI may play a constructive role in engaging with the Human Rights Council, including its universal periodic review.

• While all human rights are interdependent and indivisible, NHRIs have special responsibilities to support human rights protection for specific groups and empower them to claim their rights. This includes people who are vulnerable because of their gender, age, minority status, indigenous status, disability, sexual orientation, or because of their internal displacement or refugee status, to name but a few.

• Today, NHRIs are uniquely placed to play a powerful role in advancing human rights in the context of business activities, as they are at the interface between government, civil society and the private sector, and between the international, national and local levels.
• What role the NHRI can play will depend on the organic law of the NHRI, and whether the law gives the NHRI the ability to accept complaints about private sector activity.