Human rights aim to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect. While human rights standards are sourced primarily in international treaties and conventions, they apply to ordinary people in every country that has signed up to them.
By signing up to international instruments, nations such as Ireland agree that they will apply these human rights in their territories and that everyone in their country is entitled to those rights.
In 1993, the member states of the United Nations agreed to establish a new type of body whose role would be to ensure that the rights signed up to at the international level were promoted and protected directly at the national level. These new bodies were to be ‘national human rights institutions’; in Ireland, following on from the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the Irish State established the Irish Human Rights Commission.
Since the commission began its work in 2003, we have focussed to a large extent at the ‘macro’ level – that is, working to make sure that law, policy and practice in Ireland is in line with international standards and the rights contained in the Constitution.
We have worked over this time on a very wide range of areas from mental health and housing to retention of DNA and age limits on juries, to privacy, surveillance and criminal justice.
There are many ongoing human rights issues in Ireland that need our attention. For instance, at the end of March of this year, we published an extensive inquiry report into the care of people with a severe to profound intellectual disability. This inquiry was carried out at the request of a group of the parents of the people concerned.
Our findings showed clearly how the strategies, legislation and policy frameworks at the national level impacted upon individuals’ daily lives.
Also, just two weeks ago we appeared before an Oireachtas committee to discuss our recommendations in relation to the Government’s DNA Database Bill. The retention and storage of someone’s DNA relates to a person’s most intimate details – their genetic make-up – and we feel that one of the most efficient ways in which our role of promoting and protecting the human rights of people in Ireland can be exercised is by ensuring that the laws which the Government introduce, such as this bill, comply with international and Constitutional human rights standards.
It is because we have seen, time and time again, the impact which national level policies and practices have on people’s everyday situations that we focus our limited resources at this level.
As well as monitoring issues at the national level, we also have a role in keeping track of developments which are taking place within human rights at the international level and which have the potential to positively impact on people in Ireland. These developments include new treaties or other international instruments which Ireland has or may sign up to in the future.
One of the most important instruments that Ireland has yet to ratify is the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We hope that this convention, which is the first dealing specifically with the rights and needs of persons with a disability, will come into force in Ireland soon. And there are other areas, such as in relation to the rights of older persons, where we would expect to see new binding instruments emerge in the coming years.
The emergence of new instruments demonstrates that although it is over 60 years since the world first agreed to an international human rights framework, this framework is still developing and expanding.
Some of the most potentially far-reaching developments are within the European Union context. The Charter of Fundamental Rights, which will embed human rights into the heart of the EU, has a huge positive potential to strengthen human rights in all areas of law, policy and practice and for everyone in Ireland.
At the Irish Human Rights Commission, we will continue our work to monitor not only the adherence to human rights in Ireland but also the developments which take place outside of Ireland and will continue to ensure that the highest international standards are applied and upheld for everyone in this country.
Éamonn Mac Aodha is CEO of the Irish Human Rights Commission
www.ihrc.ie
