Inside the Human Rights Ministry of Burkina Faso: How professionalised civil servants shape governmental human rights focal points
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/09240519211018149 |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| Author | Sébastien Lorion |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Inside the Human Rights
Ministry of Burkina Faso:
How professionalised civil
servants shape
governmental human
rights focal points
S´
ebastien Lorion
Danish Institute for Human Rights, Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
The human rights professionalisation of civil servants has emerged as a core dimension of gov-
ernmental human rights focal points (GHRFPs), notably in the 2016 OHCHR’s guide on ‘national
mechanisms for reporting and follow-up’. The article investigates this dimension and warns that the
role of civil servants is indeed pivotal to human rights compliance strategies but plays out in
complex ways. Reflecting on an ethnographic journey within the Human Rights Ministry of Burkina
Faso, the article shows how professionalised civil servants fall short of triggering the intended
change. It debunks key mechanisms through which agents translate acquired skills and shape
GHRFPs’ performance as sites of human rights localisation and coordination. Such ‘deviations’
should not be construed only as local pathologies: they are unintentionally nurtured by interna-
tional guidance, support and oversight systems. The article calls for a renewed approach to human
rights professionalisation, that would recognise – possibly resolve – the unaccounted yet crucial
tension between agents’ values and neutral ideal-types for efficient bureaucracies.
Keywords
Governmental human rights focal points, human rights ministries, civil servants,
professionalisation, translation, national mechanisms for reporting and follow-up, Burkina Faso
Corresponding author:
S´
ebastien Lorion, Danish Institute for Human Rights, Wilders plads 8K Copenhagen 1401, Denmark.
E-mail: selo@humanrights.dk
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights
2021, Vol. 39(2) 95–118
ªThe Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/09240519211018149
journals.sagepub.com/home/nqh
NQHR
NQHR
1. INTRODUCTION
The formation of specialised and permanent staff is a core ideal attribute of governmental human
rights focal points (GHRFPs), understood as States’ execut ive branch structures mandated to
ensure human rights implementation at the national level.
1
What was a fleeting reference to trained
staff in earlier guidance on GHRFPs has now been made a central dimension of the practical guide
on ‘national mechanisms for reporting and follow-up’ (NMRFs) published by the Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in 2016.
2
The guide prescribes a ‘dedicated,
capacitated and continuous staff’
3
and abundantly details tasks that agents shall perform. Although
focusing on reporting and follow-up functions, the guidance on NMRFs captures much of the
attention on comprehensive GHRFPs.
4
For the UN Secretary-General, it carves out a ‘new type of
governmental structure’ that has ‘the potential to become one of the key components of the
national human rights protection system’ precisely because it ‘may result in the building of
professional human rights expertise in every State’.
5
This human rights professionalisation objective fits recent trends promoting domestic institu-
tionalisation as a strategy to enhance human rights compliance
6
– but should not be taken for
granted. ‘Protest scholars’ associ ate human rights with social struggles and are suspicious of
routinisation processes.
7
They insist that human rights shall remain as a ‘counter-system’ against
the invasive power of bureaucratic o rganisations,
8
and denounce human rights administ rative
mainstreaming as a ‘colonization of political culture by a technocratic language’, with civil
servants instrumentalising rights to bolster their own interests.
9
On the contrary, the prevailing
managerial compliance strategies contend that implementation problems are not necessarily linked
to political lack of willingness, but also depend on issues such as insufficient State capacities,
including stable and efficient administrations. Some radicall y find that ‘bureaucratic efficacy
exert[s] the strongest independent effect on countries’ human rights practices’.
10
Going further,
other scholars focus on capacity-building of civil servants, but as an avenue to transform their
values and socialise them, and through them States, into norm compliance. Socialisation appears as
‘a process grounded in the beliefs, conduct, and social relations of individuals [relying on] various
1. See GHRFP concept and attributes in the introduction to this Special Issue: S´ebastien Lorion and St´ephanie Lagoutte,
‘What are Governmental Human Rights Focal Points’ (2021) Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights.
2. OHCHR, National Mechanisms for Reporting and Follow-Up: A Practical Guide to Effective Engagement with
International Human Rights Mechanisms (UN Doc. HR/PUB/16/1, 2016).
3. ibid 14.
4. See HRC Res 42/30 (UN Doc. A/HRC/42/30, 24 September 2019), which calls for the adoption of national
mechanisms for implementation, reporting and follow-up. In this article, the terminology of ‘NMRFs’ is relied on,
following the 2016 guide as the primary set of guidance.
5. UNGA, Report of the Secretary-General (UN Doc. A/72/351, 2017) para 15.
6. Steven LB Jensen, St´ephanie Lagoutte, S´ebastien Lorion, ‘The Domestic Institutionalisation of Human Rights’ (2019)
37 Nordic Journal of Human Rights 165.
7. Marie-B´en´edicte Dembour, ‘What are Human Rights? Four Schools of Thought’ (2010) 32 Human Rights Quarterly 1,
3.
8. Gideon Sjoberg, Elizabeth A Gill and Norma Williams, ‘A Sociology of Human Rights’ (2001) 45 Social Problems 11,
41.
9. Martti Koskenniemi, ‘The Effect of Rights in Political Culture’ in Philip Alston (ed), The European Union and Human
Rights (Oxford University Press 1999) 99.
10. Wade M Cole, ‘Mind the Gap: State Capacity and the Implementation of Human Rights Treaties’ (2015) 69 Inter-
national Organization 405, 434.
96 Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 39(2)
To continue reading
Request your trial