The development of Human Rights has been a continuous quest by the United Nations since its inception. The first recorded discussion on the subject of National Human Rights Institutions took place in the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in 1946 when the council invited member states to consider the desirability of establishing information groups or local Human Rights Committee within their respective countries to collaborate with them in furthering the work of the commission on human rights.
Indeed only a very small number of independent NHRIs had been established in any region before 1990, when the Commission on human rights decided to hold a meeting on the subject of National Human Rights Institutions. This conference which convened in Paris in 1991, prepared a set of “Principles relating to the status of National Institutions” - “Paris principles”.
