Camara de Disputadas y Disputados Chile
25 June 2020
All domestic actors – whether governmental state actors, independent state institutions or civil society organizations – play multiple roles to ensure the implementation of international human rights standards and recommendations. In doing so, they cooperate with one another and establish diverse and country-specific strategies for human rights monitoring and implementation.
Our new Research Brief Beyond the 2020 Treaty Body Review: The Role of National Human Rights Systems discusses the approach, methodology and objectives of our new research project that aims at gaining a more comprehensive understanding of the strengths and weaknesses affecting different National Human Rights Systems (NHRSs).
In light of the Treaty Body Review 2020 and related calls for increased stakeholder connectivity, it is important to understand whether the current international human rights system may benefit from improved coordination and leveraging of synergies at the national level.
‘As the United Nations (UN) Treaty Body Review 2020 draws towards its conclusion, it is time to focus on the domestic level and assess the role of national monitoring and implementation strategies’ explains Domenico Zipoli, Research Fellow at the Geneva Academy and author of the Research Brief.
Given the variety of NHRSs, the research aims to detect best practices that are most effective in both the monitoring and implementation of UN human rights recommendations. It does so by comparing existing national strategies within distinct NHRSs.
‘Collecting such data and best practices will greatly assist in determining the effectiveness of monitoring and follow-up mechanisms put in place by both UN and national human rights bodies’ underlines Domenico Zipoli.
The project’s outputs and results will be presented at the end of 2020.
‘Three main contributions can be expected at this point. Firstly, the strengths and weaknesses that will stem from each NHRS under analysis can inform other countries’ initiatives of domestic human rights institutionalization. Secondly, highlighted best practices may assist further efforts towards increased connectivity amongst domestic actors and UN human rights mechanisms. Lastly, a stronger focus on the national human rights ‘infrastructure’ may also be useful to inform the preparations of future treaty body and UN Human Rights Council review processes’ stresses Felix Kirchmeier, Executive Director of the Geneva Human Rights Platform and Manager of Policy Studies at the Geneva Academy.
Adobe
A new working paper, 'AI Decoded: Key Concepts and Applications of Artificial Intelligence for Human Rights and SDG Monitoring', has been published by the Geneva Human Rights Platform.
Geneva Academy
The Geneva Human Rights Platform contributed to key discussions on AI, human rights, and sustainable digital governance at the World Economic Forum 2025.
Adobe Stock
This seminar explores how national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up can better integrate the capacities, data, and experiences of local and regional governments in advancing human rights implementation and reporting.
Adobe Stock
The event, as part of the AI for Good Summit 2025 will explore how AI tools can support faster data analysis, help uncover patterns in large datasets, and expand the reach of human rights work.
This training course will delve into the means and mechanisms through which national actors can best coordinate their human rights monitoring and implementation efforts, enabling them to strategically navigate the UN human rights system and use the various mechanisms available in their day-to-day work.
ICRC
Participants in this training course will gain practical insights into UN human rights mechanisms and their role in environmental protection and learn about how to address the interplay between international human rights and environmental law, and explore environmental litigation paths.
UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré
UN Photo/Violaine Martin
The IHL-EP works to strengthen the capacity of human rights mechanisms to incorporate IHL into their work in an efficacious and comprehensive manner. By so doing, it aims to address the normative and practical challenges that human rights bodies encounter when dealing with cases in which IHL applies.
Geneva Academy