Increasing parliaments' engagement with human rights 

Event Details

Enhancing the role of parliaments in the protection and realisation of human rights is emerging as a crucial way to bridge the "implementation gap" in human rights. Numerous parliaments around the world have started to prioritize human rights and engage with the UN human rights mechanisms, including the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

The Permanent Missions of Ecuador, Portugal and Spain to the United Nations together with OHCHR, University of Oxford and Universal Rights Group will host a side event on the margins of the 74th session of the General Assembly.

Date: Monday, 14 October

Time: 13:00 - 14:30

Venue: UNHQ in New York - Conference Room 11 

Booking: Please email brian.chang.td@gmail.com 

The overall purpose of the side event is to spotlight the importance of parliamentary engagement with human rights and, specifically to:

• Highlight the findings of the OHCHR report (A/HRC/38/25) on "Contributions of Parliament to the work of the HRC and its universal periodic review", including the results of the survey; the role of parliamentary committees on human rights and the draft Principles on Parliaments and Human Rights;

• Consider the concrete experience of senior MPs in terms of their parliaments' human rights engagement, in particular at committee level;

• Share good practices on parliament's engagement with human rights and possible next steps.

Expected Outcomes

• Sharing of existing good practices of parliamentary engagement with human rights from MPs from different regions of the world;

• Increasing awareness of on-going efforts to establish or strengthen national parliamentary human rights committees in line with the recommendations contained in A/HRC/38/25, including the Draft Principles on Parliaments and Human Rights.