IOI | Joint IOI-ENNHRI side event at ICC/GANHRI Annual Meeting in Geneva

On 22 March 2016 a panel discussion was held in Geneva on a human rights based approach to the work of ombudsmen.

Chaired and moderated by IOI Secretary General Günther Kräuter the panellists gave a very good insight into the human rights work of Ombudsman and National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI).

Virginia McVea, Director of the North Ireland Human Rights Commission showed a short movie about the cooperation between her office and the North Ireland Ombudsman on the development of a human rights manual. This manual was designed to help investigators to apply human rights principles when assessing complaints. Prof. Lorna McGregor, Director of the Human Rights Centre at the University Essex Law School reported about her research project with regard to NHRIs and OIs. She noted that regardless of the Ombudsman model applied, all Ombudsman offices deal with human rights. Montserrat Solano Carboni, Ombudsman from Costa Rica, added her experience from a Latin American perspective, where most Ombudsman institutions have a human rights mandate.

Closing remarks were delivered by IOI President John Walters, who once more emphasized the importance of cross institutional collaboration on the local level. This ensures giving life to the Memorandum of Understanding signed last year between the IOI and the ICC (now GANHRI – the Global Alliance for National Human Rights Institutions).