인권영향평가의 제도화 방안에 관한 연구

Abstract

As a system that could prevent negative effects and maximize positive effects on human rights in the process of projects and policies enforced by the state and local government, the human rights impact assessment is a very useful system that could prevent the polarization, and furthermore, practice the social justice by removing or minimizing the negative effects on human rights before the enforcement of all sorts of legislation, system, policy, and project. Even though Korea has many social impact assessments, such as environmental impact assessment, corruption impact assessment, gender impact assessment, traffic impact evaluation, and personal information impact assessment, there are no cases of impact assessment in the aspect of human rights. Such human rights impact assessment is only conducted in the level of local government based on ordinances. The violation of human rights could happen anytime and anywhere, and the most effective action to minimize damages from the violation of human rights is the human rights impact assessment. For this reason, the institutionalization of human rights impact assessment could be a core system of human rights administration, and also contribute to the enhancement of residents’ human rights in daily life by securing the efficiency, economic feasibility, and publicness of administration by minimizing social conflicts. Institutional devices should be provided so that not only the socially weak and minority, but also the general public can pursue human rights as rights, and all citizens are not infringed by various laws, regulations, policies and projects of the national and local governments something to do. Thus, this paper suggests the institutionalization measures of human rights impact assessment.