Part I NHRIs and the Paris Principles 1.2. DOMESTIC IMPLEMENTATION AND MONITORING MECHANISMS The international human rights system has developed a range of mechanisms, including the UPR and the treaty monitoring bodies, to encourage and monitor implementation of human rights obligations. However, the international system recognises that implementation and monitoring are best undertaken at the national or domestic level. The international system is at best a residual system that, first, promotes domestic action and monitoring and, second, where domestic systems are ineffective or inadequate, provides some limited measures of international action. There is a large range of domestic mechanisms and measures that States can use to implement and monitor the performance of their international human rights obligations. All the ordinary institutions of a democratic, pluralistic State can and should contribute. • Parliaments can enact laws that respect, protect and fulfil human rights. They can hold governments to account for their policies, programs and actions that affect human rights. • Governments and their civil servants can develop, adopt and implement policies and programs that respect, protect and fulfil human rights. They can take action to ensure that violations are prevented and, where violations occur, that violators are held to account and victims are provided with reparations. • Courts can enforce laws that respect, protect and fulfil human rights. They can punish perpetrators of human rights violations and provide protection and reparations for victims. In particular, they can uphold the rule of law and ensure equality before the law and due process for all persons within their jurisdiction. • Official governance institutions, such as anti-corruption commissions, administrative ombudsmen’s offices and administrative review tribunals, have roles to play in promoting and protecting human rights within their specific mandates in the governmental structure of the State. • Political parties have particular responsibilities, both positive and negative. Positively, they should be promoters of human rights, developing good policies and promoting those policies within the electorate through community education to build a constituency for human rights. Negatively, they must avoid campaigns that build on popular prejudices, such as racism and sexism, and reject policies that would lead to the violation of human rights. • The media have similar responsibilities to promote positively human rights values and principles and to avoid committing, endorsing or encouraging actions and views that violate human rights. They can and should investigate and publicise the actions and defects of formal State institutions – parliaments, governments and courts – so that the broader community knows what is happening and the electorate can hold them to account. • Civil society, including non-government organisations (NGOs), trade unions, business associations, universities and schools, religious communities and groups, share the responsibilities of the media in promoting positively human rights values and principles and avoiding committing, endorsing or encouraging actions and views that violate human rights. They too can encourage the implementation of human rights obligations and monitor and expose deficiencies in State performance. National human rights institutions (NHRIs) established in accordance with the international minimum standards for NHRIs are another domestic mechanism to assist the State to meet its international obligations to respect, protect and fulfil human rights. NHRIs do not compete with or take the place of other domestic institutions and mechanisms, such as the courts, but rather complement other institutions and mechanisms in their work. Chapter 1: The origins and development of NHRIs | 5