Means of Soft Power of Ombudspersons Or National Human Rights Institutions in Protecting

GANHRI Annual Meeting

Side event

Means of soft power of Ombudspersons or National human rights institutions in protecting human rights

23 February 2018 14h00 to 15h00

Room XXIII - Palais des Nations

Welcome and report:

Mr. Juris Jansons, Ombudsman of the Republic of Latvia

Participants of panel discussion:

Representative of the Seimas Ombudsman’s Office, Republic of Lithuania

Objective of the event is to discuss the diversity of the soft power means of Ombudspersons/NHRIs and other human rights institutions and share best practices to achieve the designated goals in human rights protection and prevention.

Rationale: Worldwide topicality of means and instruments other than those with administrative and repressive power to human rights protection, prevention of human rights violation and implementation of the principle of good governance at all levels.

What is ‘soft power’?

According to Harvard University professor Joseph Nye, “the basic concept of power is the ability to influence others to get them to do what you want. There are three major ways to do that: one is to threaten them with sticks; the second is to pay them with carrots; the third is to attract them or co-opt them, so that they want what you want. If you can get others to be attracted, to want what you want, it costs you much less in carrots and sticks”. Soft power here represents the third way of power uses an attraction to shared values, and the justness and duty of contributing to the achievement of those values.

In this discussion we would like to propose an exchange of practice and experience on the effectiveness of the soft power instruments of Ombudspersons/NHRIs that are not repressive and the ways how the they can achieve that the politicians, state officials, business representatives and in some cases the society comply with human rights. Here a very important aspect to look upon is also effective collaboration with other constitutional rank institutions of the State.

The participants of the discussion are kindly invited to share their institution’s experience on how their recommendations are elaborated and implemented, what are the methods and aspects that usually work better and what are the main challenges with means of soft power, also share some practice on change of methodology in giving recommendations (round-table discussions before the final statement, etc.).

We would also like to encourage participants of the meeting to share their best practices from the experience of their institutions on the means of human rights protection and good governance that have improved the situation of people or practical implementation of existing legal background.