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Sub-national Human Rights Institutions:a Definition and Typology

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Abstract

In this paper, I argue that independent governmental human rights bodies at the sub-national level now comprise a meaningful group that can be understood as a sub-national counterpart to National Human Rights Institutions. In accordance with the term’s growing usage among human rights practitioners, I label these bodies as “Sub-national Human Rights Institutions” (“SNHRIs”). So far, however, SNHRIs (as a general concept) have been the subject of very little academic attention, although there have been many studies of individual SNHRIs or particular types of SNHRIs. With the objective of promoting coherent and generalizable research into this relatively new institutional concept, in this paper I therefore stipulate and justify a general SNHRI definition and a scientific typology of SNHRIs based on administrative level, institutional form, and breadth of mandate.

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Notes

  1. According to one report, “there are as many typologies of NHRIs as papers written about them” (International Council on Human Rights Policy 2005, p. 6).

  2. Since 2012, new research into NHRIs has embraced more sophisticated social science approaches, and at least one NHRI data collection project is currently underway (Conrad et al. 2012).

  3. The term “ombudsman” is gender-neutral in the Swedish language from which it originates, and this formulation remains in common usage, although some localities have switched to the term “ombudsperson.” In this article, I use the term “ombudsman” in a gender-neutral sense.

  4. GANHRI was formerly known as the International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (“ICC”).

  5. For example, without a general “SNHRI” definition, listeners will not know what institutions the UN Secretary General was referring to, when he stated that “[i]nteraction by subnational human rights institutions with the international human rights system [are] strongly encouraged.” (UNSG 2011, para. 95).

  6. The Paris Principles are a set of guidelines for national institutions promulgated by the UN in 1993, which have been used to assess the mandate, autonomy, independence, pluralism, resources, and investigative powers of NHRIs (UNGA 1993).

  7. The Paris Principle uses terms such as “national institution” and “national legislation” and states that NHRIs should pay attention to human rights violations in “any part of the country” (UNGA 1993).

  8. Other scholars, however, use the term “implementation” more narrowly, to refer to legislative actions or programmatic initiatives to facilitate the enjoyment of human rights in a community, which are undertaken alongside human rights “protection” (complaint handling) or “promotion” (training or awareness-raising).

  9. As with my proposed definition, a secondary objective of this typology is to promote greater clarity in the public discourse surrounding SNHRIs. Typologies can assist communication by allowing for greater linguistic precision when referring to specific subsets of the broader concept.

  10. Conversely, the Provincias in Spain or Provinces in Belgium would not be considered “provinces” for the purpose of this typology, because in each case there exist a higher sub-national administrative level.

  11. At the national level, this monocratic/multi-person typology is utilized by Conrad et al. (2012, p. 10) in their NHRI dataset (although labeled as ombudsman/human rights commissions).

  12. Europe’s first local ombudsman institution was established in Zürich in 1971 (Dünser 2004).

  13. For example, Korea now has 13 local human rights ombudsmen (Korea Human Rights Foundation 2014, pp. 208–211).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the 2015 Hankuk University of Foreign Studies Research Fund.

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  1. Graduate School of International and Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Globeedorm no. 806-A, 107 Imun-ro, Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, 130-791, South Korea

    Andrew Wolman

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Wolman, A. Sub-national Human Rights Institutions:a Definition and Typology. Hum Rights Rev 18, 87–109 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-016-0429-z

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