Journalism of Courage
This is an archive article published on May 26, 2023
UN-affiliated agency defers accreditation of India’s human rights body: The TL;DR
Without the accreditation, the NHRC will be unable to represent India at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The accreditation of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has been deferred by the GANHRI. (Representative image)
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UN-affiliated agency defers accreditation of India’s human rights body: The TL;DR
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A UN-affiliated agency has, for the second time, deferred re-accreditation of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of India for a year, The Indian Express has learnt.
The re-accreditation process takes place every five years.
The big point: The NHRC’s ‘A’ status has not been re-authorised this year by the Sub Committee on Accreditation (SCA) to the Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI). Without the accreditation, the NHRC will be unable to represent India at the United Nations Human Rights Council.
The response: The NHRC told The Indian Express that “the deferment is an action of the SCA, and not a recommendation on the accreditation status of the NHRC, India.” The humans rights body also stated that the deferral means that the no final decision on the accreditation has been taken yet.
Zoom in: For now, the SCA has recommended that the Indian human rights body improve compliance with the Paris Principles through advocating with the government and parliamentarians for certain legislative amendments, the NHRC told The Indian Express.
Adopted in 1991, the Paris Principles set out the minimum standards that national human rights institutions must meet in order to be considered credible and to operate effectively.
Some background: The SCA had granted the ‘A’ status of accreditation to the NHRC in 2017, after deferring it the year before. The year 2016 had marked the first instance when the accreditation had been deferred since the NHRC was established in 1993. At that time, the GANHRI had cited the appointment of political representatives and failure in ensuring gender balance and pluralism among NHRC staff as some of its reasons for the deferment.
The NHRC got the ‘A’ status of accreditation for the first time in 1999, which it retained in 2006, 2011, and in 2017.
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Read the full report here Global agency affiliated to UN rights body defers NHRC accreditation
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