A/HRC/RES/27/18 United Nations General Assembly Distr.: General 7 October 2014 Original: English Human Rights Council Twenty-seventh session Agenda item 8 Follow-up to and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council 27/18 National institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights The Human Rights Council, Recalling all relevant Human Rights Council resolutions and relevant resolutions of the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights concerning national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights, and recalling Council resolution 24/16 of 27 September 2013, Reaffirming the importance of establishing and strengthening independent, pluralistic national human rights institutions1 in accordance with the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles), Reaffirming also the important role that such national human rights institutions play and will continue to play in promoting and protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, in strengthening participation and the rule of law, and in developing and enhancing public awareness of those rights and fundamental freedoms, Reaffirming further the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted at the World Conference on Human Rights on 25 June 1993, which reaffirmed the important and constructive role played by national human rights institutions, in particular in their advisory capacity to the competent authorities and their role in preventing and remedying human rights violations, in the dissemination of human rights information, and education in human rights, 1 National human rights institutions are those national institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights referred to in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action and the principles relating to the status of national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights (the Paris Principles). GE.14-18000 (E) 