A/HRC/11/3 page 7 E. Relationship with national human rights institutions and non-governmental organizations 17. Throughout the workshop, speakers referred to the mutually-supportive relationship between regional commissions and NHRIs and NGOs. Regional mechanisms can support NHRIs to develop their institutional capacity, while NHRIs offer knowledge of the specific in-country situation and can operate more efficiently than regional mechanisms in resolving individual complaints. The effective functioning of NHRIs is crucial to ensure that complaints may be adequately addressed at the national level and that the number of complaints reaching the regional and international forums does not increase at an unsustainable rate. 18. In the case of ASEAN, it was noted that the United Nations and NHRIs in the region were spear-heading international support for the establishment of a regional human rights mechanism. Far from creating any duplication of mandates between NHRIs and a regional mechanism, the national bodies facilitate the sharing of best practice and support the development of regional mechanisms that will play a role distinct from that of the NHRIs. In both the ASEAN and the Pacific regions, it was observed that a number of countries do not yet have NHRIs and that these are an essential component of the human rights protection framework. Regional mechanisms are particularly important in the absence of effective NHRIs. A large number of cases presented to the Inter-American Commission during the 1970s and 1980s arose in countries that afforded no domestic recourse for human rights violations. 19. The Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner works closely with NHRIs, including through a peer-to-peer project to share information on human rights standards issued by the Council of Europe and the United Nations to ensure that NHRIs are kept up to date on the standards they should apply. FRA works with Governments in some cases to support institutional capacity-building and with civil society to promote increased awareness of human rights standards. While FRA obtains human rights data from NGOs, it works more closely with civil society in the design of research activities by FRA. National reports are also prepared for FRA by contractors. These are published in the interests of transparency. The partnership between civil society and the Inter-American Commission and Court is very important. Regional and national civil society groups are increasingly submitting complaints to the Inter-American Commission. Furthermore, civil society has a vital role to play in the selection process to identify commissioners and judges. 20. The issue of whether formal consultative status is required for NGOs wishing to engage with regional mechanisms is addressed differently from region to region. The Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner does not set criteria for consultative status and NGOs engage with the Commissioner freely. In the African human rights system, NGOs have established a forum, which meets prior to the African Commission hearings. African NHRIs were granted special observer status with the African Commission in resolution 31 (XXIV) in 1998. This status permits the individual NHRIs to work more closely with the African Commission in the promotion and protection of human rights. The resolution also states that any national institution shall be required to submit reports to the African Commission every two years on its activities in the promotion and protection of the rights enshrined in the Charter, although until now only four have been able to submit a report. It was observed that NHRIs are to some extent half-way between Governments and civil society and thus could act as a bridge to enhance collaboration towards the implementation of decisions of the African Commission.