Civil society organisations and international human rights: research summary

In early 2020, HRLC conducted research on behalf of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) looking at how civil society organisations (CSOs) in England and Wales utilise the UN human rights treaties and/or engage with UN human rights mechanisms in their work.

Research was carried out via a survey sent to over 350 CSOs to establish their current practices and identify areas for improvement. The EHRC commissioned this research in order to understand how they can best help CSOs to engage with the international human rights framework (IHRF) and help hold governments to account for their human rights obligations.

Survey results showed that CSOs that engaged with the review mechanisms were more likely to draw on the IHRF more frequently in their work and were most likely to do so in the course of policy and influencing work.

Lack of resources was identified as the greatest barrier preventing CSOs from making greater use of the UN human rights system. Lack of specialist knowledge of how to use human rights treaties or review mechanisms was also identified as a barrier for a quarter of respondent CSOs. Over half of CSOs that reference the treaties only, would welcome better guidance on how to use them. 

A number of respondent CSOs also expressed a view that the UK Government displayed a lack of engagement with, and care for, rights issues. A geographical disparity also emerged between England and Wales in this regard, 15 respondents whose CSOs operate in Wales noted either a greater interest in human rights by the Welsh Government than the UK Government or a better domestic rights structure in Wales. 

This research was carried out by Laura Wills, HRLC Research and Projects Officer, and Dr Annemarie Walter, Assistant Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations. Professor Aoife Nolan, HRLC Co-Director, led the project team.

We would like to thank all those that took the time to complete the survey. The full research summary is available in English and Welsh on the EHRC website.