National Human Rights Commissions and Asian Human Rights Norms

Ever since the beginning of the “Asian Values” debate in the early 1990s, there have been efforts on the part of many societal actors to establish distinctively Asian human rights norms that integrate local customary values and international human rights norms. This article presents the claim that National Human Rights Commissions in Asia are well placed to play an important role in this effort to develop localized human rights norms because of their close links with local civil actors, along with their independence from government control, pluralistic make-up, and ability to address complex rights issues in detail. The article also presents a study of how the National Human Rights Commission of Korea has used its powers to prioritize and promote a particularly Korean version of the human rights of the elderly.