Research on Comprehensive National Human Rights Action Plans Formulated by Different Countries

CHANG Jian* & LYU Zhijie** & WEI Hui*** & GAO Jiexin****

Abstract: A comprehensive national human rights action plan is a planned, integrated, and time-sensitive expression of political will and action arrangement. As of October 2025, at least 93 UN member states have formulated 198 phases of comprehensive national human rights action plans, with each phase covering an average period of approximately 4.55 years. Based on an analysis of 36 collected texts of national human rights action plans, these plans mainly involve 14 categories of measures, with an average of 9.69 categories per plan; they cover 34 rights in total, with an average of 17.83 rights per plan. Comprehensive national human rights action plans focus on national priorities in promoting human rights, concentrate on particularly intractable issues that have long remained unresolved in the field of human rights, pave the way for the legal protection of human rights, bridge the “last mile” that is difficult to reach via the legal protection of human rights, and thus play a unique and irreplaceable role in advancing human rights development.

Keywords: human rights · National Human Rights Action Plan · comprehensive National Human Rights Action Plan · special National Human Rights Action Plan