General Observation 2.4 on the Recruitment and retention of NHRI staff focuses predominantly on mechanisms to promote independence of the NHRI in its recruitment of staff – for example, by restricting the potential for government secondees and ensuring that recruitment decisions are made independently of government. However, it also provides that NHRIs should be: legislatively empowered to determine the staffing structure and the skills required to fulfil the NHRI’s mandate, to set other appropriate criteria (for example, to increase diversity), and to select their staff in accordance with national law. 40 In many cases, staffing and recruitment policies may be developed at the sole discretion of the NHRI, which provides an institution with ample latitude to establish its own internal mechanisms to encourage the representation of staff at all levels. In the APF’s recent Gender Baseline Assessment, 24 of the 25 Asia Pacific NHRIs surveyed indicated that gender equality is considered in their human resource management systems in some respect.41 However, with most internal NHRI policies on recruitment and human resources not publicly available, it is difficult to assess the quality of these systems and their impact in supporting actual equality and representation in practice. The reference in General Observation 2.4 to the selection of staff ‘in accordance with national law’ has been applied by the SCA to allow NHRIs to operate within the parameters of public sector regulatory schemes, which may be required under national law in some contexts. This may include through the payment of staff in accordance with generally applicable public sector salary scales, or making mandatory contributions to civil service pension funds.42 While this may be a relevant consideration in staffing approaches more generally, there is an increasing focus at the SCA on the gender composition of staff in practice, including whether there has been an increase in the proportion of female staff since the NHRI’s previous review. The written application template for GANHRI accreditation, the Statement of Compliance with the Paris Principles, requires applicant NHRIs to explain ‘[w]hether and how the staff reflects the principle of pluralism’ and to provide ‘a list of staff’ or the ‘staffing structure of the NHRI’, indicating the ‘gender distribution’ of staff.43 This information is critical for the SCA’s assessment of whether there is a sufficient proportion of female staff to meet the pluralism requirements of the Paris Principles. However, consistent with its approach to gender representation on the NHRI decisionmaking body, the SCA has not established a precise threshold for what it considers to be a sufficient proportion of female staff that will apply across all national contexts. In some accreditation reviews, the SCA has acknowledged the efforts of NHRIs to strengthen internal policy frameworks to support greater gender diversity among staff. For example, in the 2014 review of the NHRI of Afghanistan, the SCA noted ‘with appreciation’ the institution’s efforts to improve gender balance in it staff, including ‘the adoption of a Gender Policy to promote greater 40 General Observations (n 16) 39 Gender Baseline Assessment (n 1) 29. 42 Note that General Observation 2.7 on the Administrative Regulation of NHRIs also relevantly explains that: 41 The classification of an NHRI as an independent State agency has important implications for the regulation of certain practices, including reporting, recruitment, funding and accounting. Where a State has developed uniform rules or regulations to ensure State agencies are properly accountable for their use of public funds, the application of such rules or regulations on an NHRI is not considered inappropriate provided they do not compromise the NHRI’s ability to perform its role independently and effectively. Note, however, that the SCA does not always accept this as a justification for recruitment practices that may compromise NHRI independence: October 2021 SCA Report (n 34) 12-13 (Mongolia); December 2020 SCA Report (n 53) 31-32 (Serbia). 43 Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, Compilation of the Rules and Working Methods of the SCA < https://ganhri.org/information-for-nhris/> 26. Gender Equality and the Paris Principles 9