The Geneva Human Rights Platform Provides Input to Key Discussion on National Implementation of Human Rights

2 May 2023

Representatives of national mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up (NMIRFs) and governments from 20 countries, as well as experts, national human rights institutions (NHRIs) and international organizations, gathered on 7–8 December 2022 in Marrakech for an international seminar on NMIRFs. The seminar was convened by the Interministerial Delegation for Human Rights of Morocco, in partnership with the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

The Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP) contributed to the proceedings by moderating discussions and providing substantive inputs to three key sessions.

Two GHRP Advisory Board members, Virginia Bras Gomes and Miloon Kothari, were also responsible for sessions on the coordination of human rights action with other ministries and on governmental agencies and consultations and engagement with other actors in the national human rights system (e.g. civil society, NHRIS and parliament). Dr Domenico Zipoli, Project Coordinator of the GHRP, was responsible for the session on information management systems and indicators where he introduced the aims and objectives of the new GHRP initiative on digital human rights tracking tools and databases. A report provides a comprehensive summary of the key discussions that took place during this seminar and its various sessions.

At the end of the two-day seminar, representatives of NMIRFs and governments adopted the ‘Marrakech Declaration’, in which they decided to ‘establish an international network aiming to institutionalise the cooperation, partnership, dialogue and the exchange of expertise and experiences among NMIRFs’. The next opportunities for NMIRFs to meet will be at a Geneva-based seminar organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in June 2023, and at the next in-country Seminar of NMIRFs to be hosted by Paraguay at the end of 2023.