MPs call at World Human Rights Forum for institutionalized participation of parliaments in UN human rights mechanisms

Parliamentarians from different countries and parts of the world gathered in Marrakesh on the 29^th of Nov. 2014 for the World Human Rights Forum 2014 and to take part, in particular, in a meeting on the role of parliaments and parliamentarians in the promotion of human rights and their participation in UN human rights mechanisms.  

Some participants of this international gathering said they are ‘frustrated' because national parliaments are not sufficiently involved in the development of international treaties and conventions. We just have a little role to play in this process, they reaffirmed. International conventions are designed by States and are submitted to parliaments only for approval without any possibility for parliamentarians to propose any amendments. They should be approved and adopted as such or rejected as a whole, the said.

Other parliamentarians were optimist and said that parliaments have increasing opportunities to provide input prior to the signature of international conventions. Bust these good practices are in fact limited. Today, MPs aspire to a much more important role particularly in UN human rights mechanisms.

Mr. Ibrahim Salama, Director of the Human Rights Treaties Division at the High Commission for Human Rights, said that parliamentarians can effectively participate in the process by their observations and recommendations on government reports or by engaging in interactive dialogues with their respective governments in this regard. But some MPs were even more ambitious and called for an institutionalized cooperation and participation of parliaments and parliamentarians in UN human rights mechanisms. They said parliaments should have the opportunity to prepare their own annual report on human rights and submit them as shadow reports to treaty bodies and the UN Human Rights Council.

But can the majority and the opposition in parliaments have the same assessments and agree on the same conclusions? If granted this right, who should represent parliaments in these mechanisms; majority or opposition representatives? This merits a debate indeed.