Institutionalizing human rights in the United States: Advocacy for a national human rights institution

Abstract

National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) have been part of the infrastructure of international law since 1946, two years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was completed. Globally, more than 120 nations have established independent NHRIs. Two-thirds of these have been accredited by the Global Association of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI) after passing a rigorous review to assess their compliance with the Paris Principles, a set of minimum standards for NHRIs. The United States does not have an NHRI and the federal government has resisted calls from both domestic NGOs and the international community to establish such an institution. Domestic advocates nevertheless continue to pursue creative approaches to promote human rights monitoring and implementation in the United States. U.S. civil society submissions to treaty bodies regularly draw attention to the need for a U.S. NHRI. On the domestic stage, advocates likewise urge the federal government to take a greater role in human rights monitoring, implementation, and coordination. However, as a global power and a key actor in the UN system, the U.S. government experiences few consequences for failing to establish an NHRI. In sum, the absence of a U.S. NHRI is a challenge not only for domestic advocates, but for the international system as well.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks Heather DuCharme, NUSL ‘24, and Morgan Metsch, NUSL ’25 for excellent research assistance, and Jackie Smith and Michael Goodhart for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Steven Jensen, Sébastien Lorion, Jason Naum, and Andreas Ljungholm provided helpful resources and international perspectives. Any errors are the responsibility of the author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For purposes of this paper, a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) is defined as “an independent national institution established by a Member or Observer State of the United Nations with a constitutional or legislative mandate to promote and protect human rights,” consistent with the Paris Principles. See General Assembly Resolution of 2019, https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Countries/NHRI/GANHRI/EN_GANHRI_Statute_adopted_05.03.2019_vf.pdf. This is distinct from a national human right plan or other monitoring mechanism.

2 The countries calling for progress on a U.S. NHRI during this review were Bahrain, Sudan, Germany, Haiti, Egypt, Ghana, Venezuela, Russian Federation, Qatar, Republic of Korea, and Ireland, and an Advance question on the topic was submitted by the UK. UN, Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, United States of America (2011), A/HRC/16/11, available at https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/158198.pdf.

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Notes on contributors

Martha F. Davis

Martha F. Davis is University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University School of Law, Affiliated Faculty of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Lund University, and a 2022–2024 Fellow of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.