Human Rights Review

, Volume 18, Issue 1, pp 87–109 | Cite as

Sub-national Human Rights Institutions:a Definition and Typology

Article
First Online:

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.

Keywords

Ombudsman Human Rights Commission Federalism Typology National Human Rights Institution 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

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

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Graduate School of International and Area StudiesHankuk University of Foreign StudiesSeoulSouth Korea

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