A/HRC/27/41
and enabling greater engagement by MNHRC with civil society and human rights
defenders. OHCHR and other stakeholders, including the Asia Pacific Forum of National
Human Rights Institutions (APF), the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and
Humanitarian Law and international experts on national human rights institutions,
consistently recommended that the Government create a legislative basis for the
establishment of a national institution in compliance with the Paris Principles, the
international minimum standards on national human rights institutions.
24.
In 2013, in order to ensure that an independent institution to promote and protect
human rights, in line with the Paris Principles, was established by law, OHCHR, APF,
international experts and partners, with the active support and involvement of the senior
legal adviser in the Office of the President, provided technical cooperation and advice on
substantive or procedural elements of the bill, as well as encouraged participation by civil
society, before and after its submission to Parliament in August 2013. The Myanmar
National Human Rights Commission Law was adopted in March 2014 and promulgated by
the President in April 2014.
European Union: supporting the application by European Union member States of
a human rights-based approach to trafficking and border control
25.
With a view to supporting European Union efforts in implementing the European
Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, the OHCHR Regional Office for Europe, together
with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children Fund
(UNICEF), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Entity for
Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), provided technical
support to a number of European Union entities, including the European Parliament
Committee for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, in their efforts to develop a human
rights-based directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and
protecting its victims. Adopted in 2011, the directive takes into account the contributions by
United Nations entities on existing relevant international human rights standards.
26.
Following the adoption of the directive, United Nations entities, including OHCHR,
continued to provide practical guidance to European Union member States for the
application of a human rights-based approach in the transposition of the directive into their
national legislation. To that end, OHCHR and its United Nations partners prepared a joint
commentary3 on the directive in relation to existing international standards, which was
launched at the European Parliament in 2012.
27.
OHCHR also provided technical assistance to the European Agency for the
Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of Member States of the
European Union (FRONTEX) in aligning its policies with the new framework. In close
cooperation with the FRONTEX Training Unit and with the collaboration of the European
Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, UNODC, UNHCR, UNICEF, UN-Women, the
International Organization for Migration, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe and others, OHCHR provided legal and methodological advice for the development
of two specialized training packages for border guards, in compliance with international
and regional human rights standards.
28.
Multidisciplinary teams from FRONTEX, national authorities and law enforcement
agencies and United Nations partners, including OHCHR, worked jointly in the context of a
3
6
OHCHR, UNHCR, UNICEF, UNODC, UN-Women and ILO, Prevent, Combat, Protect. Human
Trafficking: Joint UN Commentary on the EU Directive – a Human Rights-based Approach ,
November 2011.
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