Swiss Human Rights Institution (SHRI)

About us

The SHRI is Switzerland's independent national human rights institution. It contributes to the protection and promotion of human rights in all areas of life and at all levels of government in Switzerland.

As a national human rights institution, it works on the basis of the UN's Paris Principles. These require legal anchoring of the institution, a comprehensive mandate for the protection and promotion of all human rights, independence, in particular from other institutions, the government and parliament, a pluralistic composition and sufficient public funding.

The SHRI is a public corporation structured similarly to an association. It is autonomous, politically, institutionally and ideologically independent, and determines its own focus and the use of its resources.

What we do

The mission of the SHRI is to represent the interests of all population groups and campaign for their rights. It cooperates with authorities at all levels of government, with representatives from business and academia, civil society, in particular with human rights organisations. It informs the public, administration, and politics and economic entities about topics pertaining to human rights. It analyses the implementation of human rights in Switzerland, indicates gaps, indicates opportunities for improvement, initiates dialogue and participates in political discourse.

The tasks of the SHRI enshrined in the Federal Act on Civilian Peacebuilding and Promotion of Human Rights include in particular:

• Information and documentation on the human rights situation in Switzerland;
• Practice-oriented research on human rights violations, legal and institutional deficits and strengthening human rights protection in regard to legislation, jurisprudence and administrative practice;
• Advising the administration of the federal government, cantons and municipalities as well as the economy sector and civil society organisations on the implementation of human rights;
• Promoting dialogue and cooperation and thereby creating synergies between government agencies, academia, the economy sector and civil society;
• Human rights education at all levels of education and training, as well as raising awareness among the general public to strengthen the protection of human rights;
• International exchange, especially with other national human rights institutions.

The SHRI performs important functions for the human rights mechanisms of the UN or the Council of Europe. It can cooperate in state reporting procedures on individual human rights covenants, promote the implementation of the recommendations by the state or promote the ratification of new human rights treaties.