ABSTRACT
The 1993 World Conference on Human Rights at Vienna thus reaffirmed ‘the important and constructive role played by national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights, in particular in their advisory capacity to the competent authorities, their role in remedying human rights violations, in the dissemination of human rights information, and education in human rights’. It also encouraged ‘the establishment and strengthening of national institutions, having regard to the ‘principles relating to the status of national institutions’, recognising the right of each State to choose the framework which is best suited to ‘its particular needs at the national level’ (UN 1993: para. 36). Another aspect of regional-governmental implementation relates to those organs of a particular UN body that oversee arrangements for UN policy at a transnational and usually continental level. Again the importance of these arrangements was recognised at Vienna:
Regional arrangements play a fundamental role in promoting and protecting human
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international human rights instruments, and their protection. The World Conference on Human Rights endorses efforts under way to strengthen these arrangements and to increase their effectiveness, while at the same time stressing the importance of cooperation with the United Nations human rights activities. The World Conference on Human Rights reiterates the need to consider the possibility of establishing regional and sub-regional arrangements for the promotion and protection of human rights where they do not already exist.
