Ms Emily O'Reilly:

The Belgrade Principles are very important. They stem from the idea that there is a bit of a gap between certain human rights institutions and their effectiveness in terms of the government doing what they would like them to do. Part of the reason for this gap or flaw in the architecture has been identified as the fact that parliaments are not sufficiently engaged with the institutions. If there is greater parliamentary engagement, there is a greater sense of ownership. Therefore, the idea is that parliament will help to support the human rights commission by encouraging and putting pressure on governments to do what they can. That is where we come from in terms of our approach.