21st Century Challenges Faced by National Human Rights Institutions

National human rights institutions (hereinafter referred as NHRI’s) are State bodies with a constitutional and/or legislative mandate to protect and promote human rights. They are part of the State apparatus and are funded by the State. National human rights institutions—at least those that are in compliance with the Paris Principles—are the cornerstone of national human rights protection systems and, increasingly, serve as relay mechanisms between international human rights norms and the State. They have boosted globally the development of human rights. However, the fact that serious and grave human rights violations occur today also, establishes that NHRI’s have not been able to work in an effective and efficient manner and have not been able to achieve fully the goals they seemed to. While we celebrate the successes, we must also recognize the numerous challenges that NHRIs face today. It will be brought forward that the vulnerability of NHRI’s in matter of budget, the lack of support of non-governmental institutions towards NHRI’s, Governmental control of national media become some of the main challenges that NHRI’s have to constantly deal with. Lack of an adequate resources and powers tends to dampen the status of countries on an international front apart from making the working of NHRI’s nominal. The research will tend to highlight the challenges faced by NHRIs regarding pluralism and diversity and the fact that they are inseparably connected to the type, functions and tasks of the NHRI.