Abstract
This chapter introduces Singapore into the National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) literature by first contextualising the discourse on NHRIs in the city-state in the run up to its engagement with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The chapter then examines the calls arising from submissions over the two UPR cycles to establish a National Human Rights Institution in Singapore. Finally, it assesses stakeholder opinion on the feasibility of proposing and advocating for the establishment of a National Human Rights Institution in the city-state. The final assessment is that Singapore’s current one-party-dominated political structure continues to act as a hindrance for the establishment of independent institutions such as those related to human rights. However, the discourse for establishing a National Human Rights Institution in Singapore is no longer only domestically situated, but has also entered into the international arena through the United Nations’ UPR process. But there is a danger that Singapore might end up establishing a mechanism to deal with civil service lapses that falls shorts of a NHRI that can tackle broader human rights abuses in the city-state.
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Notes
- 1.
The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Human Rights in an inter-government agency that coordinates the Singapore government’s engagement with the UPR.
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Gomez, J., D’cruz, M. (2020). Advocating for a National Human Rights Institution in Singapore. In: Gomez, J., Ramcharan, R. (eds) National Human Rights Institutions in Southeast Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1074-8_10
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