New Research on National Human Rights Institutions

The United States is one of a dwindling number of countries worldwide that lack a National Human Rights Institution.   It is easy to imagine the niche that a US NHRI would fill — from monitoring the human right to potable, affordable water to coordinating follow-up on US compliance after UN reviews.

A new article by Katerina Linos and Tom Pegram, titled Architects of Their Own Making: National Human Rights Institutions and the United Nations, provides insights into how NHRIs maintain accountability through a transgovernmental system of independent monitoring.  This system has lessons not only for US supporters of an NHRI, but also for those interested in exploring ways of strengthening other human rights institutions, such as human rights cities.   

Here is an abstract of the article, forthcoming in the Human Rights Quarterly:

 Abstract: The United Nations promoted a novel idea in the 1990s: National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs). Their codification in the Paris Principles and subsequent UN General Assembly endorsement precipitated a global norm cascade. We demonstrate that NHRIs have spread rapidly. Furthermore, we document that structures established after UN endorsement had just as many institutional safeguards as earlier NHRIs. What explains this compliance pull? A transgovernmental NHRI network operating a system of independent monitoring of NHRIs is an important part of the explanation. We examine how this network has interacted with the UN system to create incentives for governments to strengthen NHRIs.