7.7.7 Insufficient Capacity to Manage Core Protection Issues

When an NHRI is established through UN assistance and support, but cannot or will not investigate major cases involving core protection, experience shows that NHRIs are generally perceived to have failed in their work. To the extent that the UN has supported and is publicly seen to be supporting the NHRI, experience shows that the UN may be also be seen - rightly or wrongly - as sharing in that failure.

Part of this challenge is to ensure that NHRIs pay particular attention to (1) keeping the caseload of core protection-related complaints current, (2) giving these cases priority and (3) communicating service standards effectively to the public – and then meeting those standards.

Implications for the pre-establishment phase: If the country is experiencing violations of basic rights that are linked to issues like torture, arbitrary detention, forced disappearances, etc. then the government needs to understand early on that the principal priority of the NHRI will inevitably be to deal with these issues, and that political pressure or reprisals may not help the cause. Examples from other countries, preferably in the region, may help.

Several approaches to dealing with core protection are set out in Chapter 4.