BIHR Director Speaks at UN Human Rights Council

At the 12th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, BIHR Director Katie Ghose joined other human rights experts in Geneva for a panel discussion hosted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The panel of speakers also included Andrew Dismore MP, Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights and Maarit Kohonen, Coordinator of the Human Rights and Economic and Social Issues Unit at the Research and Right to Development Division (OHCHR).

The event, entitled ‘Putting People First: the story of Human Rights in Britain', gave the EHRC the opportunity to discuss and share the findings from their Human Rights Inquiry report, which explores how far the public sector have adopted a rights based approach to delivering their services.

The experts discussed the recommendations of the report, the importance of leadership from the media and the political world towards embedding a human rights culture, and the forthcoming challenges of the Bill of Rights consultation.

Speaking about the event Katie reflected that "the session was a great opportunity for BIHR to speak about its vision for a new human rights movement in the UK which is relevant to people 'at home' and linked with a wider global movement. We were pleased to be invited by the EHRC to share our ideas for how it takes forward its human rights inquiry. BIHR wants to see the EHRC and other leaders take action on human rights - taking pockets of good practice and scaling them up. Above all, we want to see the EHRC explicitly speak out about the value and relevance of human rights for people in everyday life".

The event will hopefully have paved the way for collaborative discussions between the EHRC, the Human Rights Council, the ICC and other organisations such as BIHR about how obstacles hindering human rights becoming fully integrated throughout the U.K can be overcome.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's Human Rights Inquiry Report is available here. The inquiry, launched on 28 April 2008, drew on the opinion of 2,000 adults and has been instrumental in assessing the impact of the current human rights culture in Britain.