National Human Rights Institutions and the Provision of Remedies
11 October 2019
By John Morrison, Chief Executive, IHRB
In July 2018, the Human Rights Council (A/HRC/RES/38/13) requested the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights to analyse the role of national human rights institutions (NHRI) in facilitating access to remedy for business-related human rights abuses, and to convene a two-day global consultation on these issues, to inform the Council's 44th session in June 2020.
IHRB's Chief Executive, and Deputy Chair of the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, John Morrison joined the Working Group's consultations in Geneva. He started by noting:
"I would like to limit my remarks here to the example of sport, although I think much of it is transferrable to other industries. You might think that sport is a luxury when compared to seemingly more urgent or pressing issues on the human rights agenda in any given country, but sport brings together a powerful set of interests, and with it the great potential for good as well as the risk of very serious harm.
The Centre for Sport and Human Rights has deepened this work with a particular focus on NHRIs as potential providers of remedy in the systemic abuses of rights that exist in one of the most unregulated global industries that touches billions of lives – that of sport. I am pleased that several NHRIs attended the recent Commonwealth Games Assembly in Rwanda and enabled us to spend a whole day of the Assembly focusing on building national-level approaches."
