Publication

If you're not aware of it, there are National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI) that have been designated as National Preventive Mechanisms (NPM) by their respective countries. And what are NPMs, you might ask? Well, they're part of the torture prevention system of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture. Now, given the existence of these institutions and mechanisms, the purpose of this paper is to look at 1) the pluses and minuses of designating certain institutions as NPMs, 2) the different types of NHRIs that gain this status, and 3) and what the latter's diversity means in terms of fulfilling a country's NPM mandate. The paper then concludes by arguing that for the UN-driven NPM system to work, states need to commit additional resources to it and enshrine their anti-torture mandates into law.