Global Human Rights Conference – Geneva

More than 100 National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, for a three-day Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) meeting to discuss among other issues, their role in promoting and protecting the rights of persons living with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

The main focus of the meeting was monitoring the rights of persons with disabilities.

The Network of African National Human Rights Institutions led the African NHRIs delegations to the February 21-23, 2018 Annual General Meeting.

The other regional networks in the meeting include the Red de Instituciones Nacionales para la Promoción y Protecctión de los Derechos Humanos del Continente Americano, Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF) and the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions.

The NHRIs shared their experiences and best practices in monitoring implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities including through data collection and disaggregation, and how to ensure meaningful and effective involvement of persons with disabilities at all stages of monitoring.

The Convention, which was adopted in 2006, requires that persons with disabilities and their organisations shall be directly involved in all aspects of the monitoring. This includes from designing national legislation and policies in line with the Convention (Article 4), to participating in their implementation and in monitoring progress made (Article 33).

This is mirrored and further reinforced by the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the overarching principle of which is to ensure that “no one is left behind”.

The meeting comes about four months after NANHRI held its 11^th Biennial Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, in which the role of NHRIs in the implementation of Agenda 2030 and Agenda 2063 we discussed.

One of the outcomes of the NANHRI November 7-9, 2017 Conference, was the formation of a working group on persons with disability. The Secretariat of NANHRI has prepared terms of reference of the PWD Working Group alongside those of the Migration, Business and Human Rights and SDG working groups.

“NHRIs have a key role to play in monitoring the Convention. They derive this role both from their investigation, complaints handling, monitoring and reporting mandate under the Paris Principles, and, specifically, when they have been designated as the independent national monitoring mechanism under article 33 (2) of the Convention,” GANHRI said in a press statement.

A number of meetings proceeded the Annual Conference. They include a knowledge exchange on good practices and on the rights of older persons and NHRIs Functions, the protection of the human rights of internally displaced persons, and the role of NHRIs in the implementation of the Guiding Principles and realising the human rights of all migrant women through the Global Compact for Migration.

A side event on the Strategic Tripartite partnership of GANHRI, UNDP, OHCHR in support of Central Asian NHRIs, the role of NHRIs in promoting, tracking and reporting on domestic compliance with international human rights norms, and means of soft power of Ombudspersons/NHRIs in protecting human rights were also held.

The global meeting took place when the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has declared the 70^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the year of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Similarly, 2018 marks 25 years since the Paris Principles, which formed the basis of NHRIs were endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly on December 20, 1993.