The Role of Parliaments in the Protection and Realisation of the Rule of Law and Human Rights research project: Follow-on Funding

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1. This proposal seeks funding to enable the research project to take a unique opportunity with the potential for major international impact, to assist international partner organisations (in particular the United Nations and the global organisation for parliaments, the Inter-Parliamentary Union) in the finalisation of the text of a set of Principles on Parliaments and Human Rights and to take the final steps towards their adoption by the UN Human Rights Council in June and, possibly, the UN General Assembly in September. The Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, where the PI (Murray Hunt) is Director, will act as the host institution for the duration of the proposed next phase (May to October 2018). 2. Following a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council in June 2017, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ("UNOHCHR"), working with the Inter-Parliamentary Union ("IPU"), has drafted a set of Principles on Parliaments and Human Rights. The draft Principles will be the subject of a validation exercise in June 2018 in Geneva, involving parliamentarians from a number of countries, and will be included in a Report to the UN Human Rights Council to be considered during its 38th session in Geneva in June. If adopted by the UN Human Rights Council, there is the further possibility that the Principles might be considered by the UN General Assembly during its meeting in New York in September 2018, which would greatly enhance their normative status as a set of global principles for parliaments worldwide. 3. The adoption of a set of internationally agreed Principles and Guidelines on the role of parliaments in relation to human rights and the Rule of Law has been one of the principal impact objectives of the project since 2012. The PI has been consulted by UNOHCHR on the draft Principles and invited to take part in the validation exercise in Geneva. The purpose of the funding sought in this proposal is to enable the project's research team to play a full part in what it is hoped will be the final stages in the adoption of the Principles as an internationally agreed set of norms. 4. Three previous phases of the project have been generously funded by the AHRC, without which the project could not have achieved such a level of influence, and the potential to have such a major impact internationally. A full summary of activity on the project since 2010 can be viewed online at https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-and-subject-groups/parliaments-rule-law-and-human-rights-project