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Status and Roles of National Human Rights Institutions

Hansa Boonrat*

Abstract

The responsibility to promote and protect human rights lies primarily with
the State. It has the duty to adopt necessary measures, be it legislative, administrative
or judicial, to ensure the realization of human rights. However, it is often found that
the State cannot fulfill its obligations in an effective manner. This has led to the United
Nations (UN) to encourage the establishment of a national human rights institution

(NHRI) as a mechanism to help ensure respect for and protection of human rights
for everyone in society. A NHRI is a state institution whose major characteristics and
responsibilities of a NHRI are laid down in the so-called “Paris Principles” endorsed by
the UN. These include the independence of NHRI and diversity of its members and
the mandate to submit opinions and recommendations to the government, parliament
or other competent bodies on matters concerning the promotion and protection of
human rights, to disseminate knowledge and promote human rights education and
receiving complaints. The NHRI usually has to work with various stakeholders to
achieve its goals including the parliament, government agencies and judicial authorities

as well as the civil society and UN human rights mechanisms. The National Human
Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT) was established by provisions of the 1997
Constitution to serve as the NHRI in accordance with the Paris Principles. Since then,
there have been some changes to the NHRCT in terms of its composition, the selection
of its members, its mandate and ways it interacts with different actors in the human
rights field. Given that the NHRI is a relatively new concept for Thailand, the NHRCT
still has to continually develop in order to achieve the goal of ensuring respect for

human rights in Thai society.

Keyword: National Human Rights Institutions, Human Rights, Paris Principles,
The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand

* Advisor, Office of the National Human Rights Commission