Projects

The HRIC is working in partnership with the 'Convention against Torture Initiative' (CTI) to develop a series of practical tools, to provide support to State implementation of the 'UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment' (UNCAT).

As part of its ongoing work on implementation, the HRIC is currently undertaking an ambitious three-year project. This project aims to track selected decisions by UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies and the regional human rights bodies against nine countries in Europe, Africa and the Americas to see the extent to which States have complied with them and why. In so doing it will provide some of the broader answers to why States comply, as well as providing insights which can be used by pro-compliance actors.

The HRIC’s initial project on the implementation of the OPCAT in Nigeria ran between 2014-16 and was funded by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The overall aim of this project was to provide policy, legal and technical advice to support national and international efforts to strengthen the functioning of the NPM in Nigeria and bring its mandate into conformity with the OPCAT.

The HRIC, together with its partners under the Article 5 Initiative, have been working on a project to assist with the implementation of the OPCAT in Rwanda. Work on this started under the original Article 5 Initiative project and since 2014 continued with the financial support of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Under this project the HRIC and its Article 5 Initiative partners are working with the Rwandan National Commission on Human Rights, the Ministry of Justice, civil society organisations in Rwanda and the Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) to assist national efforts to designate a National Preventive Mechanism in conformity with the OPCAT.

The HRIC has worked in partnership with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM) on a project to help strengthen the implementation and follow-up of recommendations of torture prevention bodies within the European Union. This project was funded by the European Union through the European Commission Directorate General for Justice. The project ran from March 2014 to April 2015.

AHRC funded a three-year research project which examined the implementation of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture. It looked at how states choose these national institutions, what factors play a role in determining how effectively they operate in visiting places of detention, and what relationship they have with the Sub-Committee.

The Centre is a partner on the Article 5 Initiative, which aims to support African institutions to improve domestic compliance with international law obligations, norms and procedures under the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) and the African Charter on Human and People's Rights. The Article 5 Initiative focuses on six post-conflict African countries, namely Burundi, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda.

As part of its overarching work to better understanding the factors and actors that may influence implementation of human rights the Centre held a four-year grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) between October 2008-2012. ‘The ‘Implementation of Human Rights Standards’ project looked at the use of non-binding, so called 'soft law' instruments by national, regional and international actors.

Since 2009 the HRIC has worked in partnership with the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) on a number of projects designed to build the knowledge and thinking around issues of pre-trial detention and torture. This body of work has sought to highlight the link between the excessive and misuse of pre-trial detention and torture and other ill-treatment such as poor conditions of detention.

This project examines the roles that National Human Rights Institutions in Europe do and should play in dispute resolution.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) commissioned the HRIC to produce a report outlining the options for an NPM for Ireland.

The HRIC, funded and in collaboration with the Zahid Mubarek Trust and Royal Holloway University are examining how national preventive mechanisms, independent bodies set up to monitor places of detention, have responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Specifically, we will analyse the extent to which any new and innovative practices, tools and ways of monitoring places of detention they have employed during this crisis can be taken forward post-pandemic.

The HRIC is partnering with YOLRED (a Ugandan community-based NGO) to implement a disability-inclusive and led research project, to assess the impact of COVID-19 on war-affected disabled populations, including former child soldiers, in Northern Uganda. This research utilises innovative participatory-action based workshops which centre, and are led by, people with war-related disabilities. Findings will inform disability-inclusive pandemic recovery strategies for Northern Uganda, as the country begins to ‘build back better’.

Ireland signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) on 2nd October 2007. Ten years on, having at that stage yet to ratify, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission commissioned research on OPCAT and Ireland by Professor Rachel Murray, Director of the Human Rights Implementation Centre in Bristol Law School, and Dr. Elina Steinerte, then Research Fellow at the Centre.