1 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, List of National Human Rights Institutions, January 2005.

2 In January 2004, the Protocol on the African Court for Human and Peoples’ Rights had received a sufficient number of ratifications for the Court to be established. However, at the African Union Summit of July 2004, President Obasanjo, in his capacity as the Chair of the African Union, announced a merger between this Court (which is to focus on the African Charter for Human and Peoples’ Rights and other international rights instruments) and the African Court of Justice (which will the primary judicial body in relation to the Constitutive Act of the African Union). The modalities of this merger have not yet been worked out, which may delay the establishment of the African Court for Human and Peoples’ Rights for some time.

3 Final Communiqué, First African Union Conference of National Human Rights Institutions, 18 – 21 October 2004, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; available from URL http://www.nhri.net. This Final Communiqué also reiterated the need for national institutions “to address issues of democratic governance, peace and security and the right to development” (s. 9, p. 3).

4 Hatchard (1999: 37) identifies six factors which support an integrated approach, including: avoidance of duplication; greater opportunity for enhanced public profile and withstanding executive efforts to undermine the institution; underscoring that all rights are equally important.

5 Hatchard argues that the 1991 Harare Commonwealth Declaration provided a particular impetus in this regard, in which heads of state from Commonwealth countries pledged to protect and promote human rights, and strengthen good governance, accountability and the rule of law (1999: 28). 6 The Paris Principles were endorsed in 1992 by the UN Commission for Human Rights in resolution 1992/54, and were later confirmed by the UN General Assembly, in resolution 48/134, 20 December 1993. 7 The ICC is a representative body of national human rights institutions established which seeks to help create and strengthen national human rights institutions which are in conformity with the Paris Principles. The ICC encourages international coordination of joint activities and cooperation among national human rights institutions, organises international conferences, facilitates liaison with the United Nations and other international organizations and, where requested, assists governments to establish a national institution. The ICC is currently structured into four regional groupings – Africa, Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe – each of which is represented by four elected representatives. For more information on the ICC, see URL http://www.nhri.net.

8 It would, however, be erroneous to assume that national human rights institutions will, per definition, do ‘good’ in a conflict context, just because they have a human rights mandate. A Human Rights Watch report makes clear that in

some instances, commissions have sought to undermine the credibility of local human rights groups by publicly criticizing them or remaining silent when rights defenders were targeted or denounced by government. Others have lent themselves to serve as ‘window-dressing’ without making genuine efforts to deal with human rights abuses and their causes (HRW 2001: 4-5). 9 It must be noted that in the literature, ‘conflict management’ is at times used to refer to the limitation, mitigation and containment of violent conflict. See for example Miall, Ramsbotham and Woodhouse (1999:21); Fisher et al. define conflict management as “aiming to limit and avoid future violence by promoting positive behavioural changes in the parties involved” (2000: 7). 10 Uvin (2002) traces the thinking about the nexus between development and peace in an insightful article, noting seven ways in which the development world has, over time, conceived of its interactions with conflict and violence.

11 Brice Dickson, the Chairperson of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, for example argues that when a national institution takes action that is not necessarily explicitly or implicitly provided for in its mandate, its credibility and impartiality can be called into question (Working Group III 2004: 1.) 12 In 2003, the National Human Rights Commission of Nepal tried to facilitate a human rights agreement between the royal army and the Maoist rebels in Nepal. While the contents of the agreement were not that contentious, the government was reluctant to sign for fear of conveying a notion of parity between the government and the Maoists, and bestowing legitimacy on a non-state actor. Subsequently, the Commission proposed that the parties would each sign a bilateral agreement with it. This however fell through with the breaking down of a ceasefire. (Conversation with Chair of the Nepal Commission, 15 September 2004, at 7th International Conference of National Institutions, Seoul, Korea; and conversation with UN official, 7 March 2005, name withheld at request of interviewee). 13 This example is drawn from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which conducted a survey of over 4,000 Afghans and interviewed more than 200 focus groups in the last year by way of public consultation process. A comprehensive report has been published to facilitate further discussion on the issue and decide on a way forward (see IRINNews 2004: 1-2).

14 Note that the terminology of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ peace does not constitute a value judgment. Negative peace is named so because it is defined by the absence of particular conditions, whereas positive peace is defined by the presence of certain conditions. 15 ‘Negative’ and ‘positive’ peace can also applied to contexts other than large scale violent conflict. For example, if police officials stop using violence in dealing with suspects (whereas they used to do so before), it can be seen as

achieving negative peace; however, if no further changes are made in how the police operates in terms of accountability, transparency, and respect for human rights, ‘positive’ peace may not prevail in the policing sector. 16 It should be noted that the notions of ‘post-‘ and ‘pre-conflict’ are misnomers in that they generally refer to situations where violent conflict has come to an end and a peace agreement has been concluded; they reflect the tendency to conflate ‘violent conflict’ with ‘conflict.’ Post-settlement contexts are not necessarily post-conflict in that parties continue to fight for their interests, aspirations and agendas after the signing of an agreement; the means used, however, are political rather than military. 17 As Ali and Matthews put it, “peacebuilding constitutes effecting movement from […] negative peace to [..] positive peace, a condition of stable and widening shared values” (2004: 7).

18 In Lederach’s example of gangs of armed youth in Somalia, an ‘issue level’ response to the problem of roving gangs of armed youth, might entail offering the youth money in exchange for their guns, or establishing gun free zones. A ‘system level’ response might entail establishing disarmament and demobilisation programmes and developing skills development projects. Lederach argues that the former may be unsustainable if no consideration is given to the reasons why the youth carry guns (for example, for protection of family or of aid workers by way of income generation), or to the general availability of weapons. The latter response, on the other hand, may not address the immediate challenges on the ground in terms of levels of insecurity. In other words, interventions at both levels are necessary and must be connected in some ways (1997.)

19 The notion of ‘human needs’ is used in a broader sense in the conflict management field than has been the case in the human rights field, where the concept of needs has mostly been related to social and economic rights. For a more extensive and in-depth discussion of the relationship between human rights, human needs and conflict, see Parlevliet (2002: 14-19.)