Human Rights
Parliaments are responsible for protecting and promoting human rights through approving international treaties, taking legislative measures, putting human rights’ challenges at the frontline of political debate and holding governments to account. Human rights is one of the key principles of INTER PARES and a rights-based approach is embedded in all its activities.
Research has shown that parliaments work on human rights either by:
- Mainstreaming human rights through committees
- Establishing a specialized committee on the subject
- Having permanent committees deal with human rights issues during the process of International Treaties’ approval
Effective Human Rights Engagement for Parliamentary Bodies: A Toolkit
Based on research on international standards, recommendations, and good practices across the European Union, this toolkit focuses on!
- The mandates and competencies of parliamentary human rights bodies, the factors that contribute to their effective functioning, and how they can operationalize their human rights work in practice.
- Promotion of pro-active rather than re-active parliamentary human rights engagement.
- Examples of human rights engagement on procedural and thematic issues
“Parliaments are cornerstones of national human rights protection systems”
-UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 2018