RICHARD CARVER
Senior Lecturer in Human Rights and Governance, Oxford Brookes University

National human rights institutions have been routinely described as constituting a “bridge” between international human rights standards and domestic implementation. Yet it is only recently that any serious attention has been paid to how this bridge might function – how exactly national institutions might implement international standards and how they might interact with global and regional protection mechanisms. Recent research has suggested four particular ways in which this may happen:

• Use of international (as opposed to domestic) human rights standards in monitoring and complaints-handling;
• Promotion of ratification of international instruments (and monitoring of derogations);
• Review of legislation for compliance with international standards;
• Reporting to treaty bodies and other international mechanisms (such as the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review).

All these functions can be exercised whether or not a NHRI has an explicit reference to international standards in its founding statute. Also, these functions are not in principle any different whether the national legal system is one of automatic incorporation of treaties into municipal law, or specific legislative action is required.

The significance and potential benefit of making explicit reference to international standards are twofold. First, it may expand the scope of the work of a NHRI beyond those treaties directly enforceable at the municipal level. Secondly, reference to international standards can be used to elucidate the content of rights, by using comparative and international practice and jurisprudence.

This presentation will offer a preliminary assessment of the work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission against these criteria. The core of the commission’s human rights work is, of course, founded upon the Human Rights Act, which comprises those parts of the European Convention on Human Rights incorporated into municipal law. However, it is equally important to explore the margins of the EHRC’s work, going beyond the Human Rights Act to examine references to other human rights standards and to determine the nature of its relationship with the European and United Nations protection mechanisms.