In the Asia Pacific, many pressing human rights issues—like climate change, public health crises, migrant worker rights, and human trafficking—cross national borders.

Unlike other regions of the world, however, the Asia Pacific lacks a region-wide intergovernmental system to safeguard human rights. This highlights the need for strong collaboration among institutions with a responsibility to develop policies or take action on human rights issues.

To address this, our Inter-governmental Mechanisms (IGM) Project, funded by the European Union, fostered dialogue between NHRIs and regional IGMs, providing a platform for discussing human rights, climate change, and the environment, and exploring opportunities for collaboration.

Through dialogue and collaborative actions, NHRIs and IGMs shared their expertise and developed strategies to improve lives and build resilient communities.

Building collaboration between NHRIs and intergovernmental mechanisms

Through the Project, we facilitated engagement between NHRIs in South-East Asia and the Pacific with representatives from their respective IGMs: the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).

In South-East Asia, the project involved the NHRIs of Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Timor Leste.

In the Pacific, the NHRIs of Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Samoa and Tuvalu took part in the project.

Building partnerships for human rights

As part of the multi-year initiative, we achieved the following:

• Established online communities of practice for NHRIs to discuss effective strategies for engaging with their IGMs.
• Developed and implemented blended learning courses on environmental rights and climate change for NHRIs.
• Supported NHRIs in conducting national research and stakeholder consultations on environmental rights and climate change, through a small grants program.
• Facilitated roundtable dialogues, bringing together NHRIs and IGMs, with a focus on environmental rights and climate change.
• Developed a joint outcomes paper on environmental rights and climate change, in collaboration with NHRIs and regional IGMs.

By bringing together representatives from NHRIs and IGMs, we built recognition of the unique and complementary roles that both play in promoting and protecting human rights.

This collaboration fostered a shared understanding of how to address region-wide human rights issues effectively. Additionally, we identified opportunities for joint efforts between NHRIs and IGMs on issues of shared concern.

The initiative generated positive sentiment about the value of collaboration and led to a commitment to ongoing dialogue in support of future joint initiatives.

Continued collaboration for change

As a result of the project:

• Relationships between NHRIs and IGMs were either established or strengthened, where previously there had been limited connection.
• Collaborative efforts were initiated at the national level in several countries.
• Both NHRIs and IGMs in the Pacific and Southeast Asia expressed a strong interest in continuing dialogue on human rights, climate change, and environmental issues.

• Regional engagement
• Environment and climate change
• Manual

FEATURED RESOURCE

Building a climate of justice: good practice guide

APF members have developed a good practice guide on promoting collaboration between NHRIs and regional IGMs.

Read more

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Fiji: Raising the voice of communities

Through the IGM Project's small grants programme, the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission documented the experiences and adverse impacts of climate change on communities across Fiji. Many of these communities – whether the villages are in coastal, rural or maritime areas – had been identified by the government for relocation.

In addition, the Commission worked with communities to raise awareness about the new Climate Change Act and discussed whether the law was able to adequately address their individual and collective concerns.

The Philippines: Uniting partners in a vision for change

Promoting collaboration to address the human rights impacts of climate change is a key priority for the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP). This includes contributing to regional responses to safeguard fundamental human rights and supporting the efforts of the Philippines’ representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR).

Through the IGM project, the Commission documented insights and best practices from communities, businesses and the government to prepare a substantive proposal on the proposed framework on environmental rights in Southeast Asia.

Samoa: Engaging government leaders and policymakers

In April 2023, the Ombudsman/NHRI of Samoa convened a High-Level Dialogue and workshop for executives and senior staff of government agencies undertaking work related to the environment and climate change.

The discussions focused on the links between human rights and climate change, promoted the importance of integrating a human rights-based approach in climate-related policy and actions, and helped build a commitment to collaborative work between the NHRI and participating government agencies, as well as Pacific IGMs and civil society organisations.

Thailand: Strengthening the local community movement

A commitment to include people who are commonly marginalised and underrepresented in decision-making processes is key to realising the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. A priority for the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT) is to strengthen the community rights movement in the country, with a focus on access to information; participation in decision-making; access to remedies and justice; and protection of environmental human rights defenders.

By developing plain language resources and creating a safe space for community voices in policy dialogues, the NHRCT seeks to contribute to national and regional human rights frameworks on the right to a healthy environment.