Strengthening Human Rights

Human rights are at the core of the work of the United Nations. For more than seventy years, the international community has sought to build on the landmark adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, committing to a range of treaties, conventions, and multilateral resolutions to advance human rights protections. Yet despite these agreed commitments, countries are falling short in their willingness to uphold human rights, either through abject opposition or a lack of capacity to implement their commitments.

This project seeks to identify the policy levers for strengthening alignment between normative multilateral commitments on human rights issues and in-country implementation of them. It will identify and analyze domestic implementation of state commitments on human rights made in the UN General Assembly, Human Rights Council, and Security Council. It will also examine opportunities and challenges for further advancing multilateral support to strengthening human rights implementation. In doing so, it aims to inform and inspire meaningful UN member state action so that every individual will be less at risk of violence or of abuse for defending human rights.