– Setting national benchmarks for measuring the realization of economic, social and cultural rights; – Conducting research and inquiries to ascertain the extent to which particular economic, social and cultural rights are realized, nationwide or in relation to specific communities. 7. National human rights institutions in conflict and post-conflict situations National human rights institutions have more directly helped to address the human rights aspects of conflict and post-conflict societies. Some play an active role in promoting peace, encouraging efforts to establish peace processes and supporting peace accords. They may also suggest and support transitional and restorative justice processes following conflict.37 The International Coordinating Committee’s Sub-Committee on Accreditation has noted that, during a coup d’état or a state of emergency, NHRIs will exercise their mandate with a heightened level of vigilance and independence.38 Accountability can be ensured and impunity combated by documenting and investigating violations, and monitoring and recording abuses both during conflict and during transitional periods. These efforts can support future prosecution initiatives, truth-seeking and truth-telling bodies, reparations measures and vetting processes. National human rights institutions can assist victims by ensuring that they have equal and effective access to justice; adequate, effective and prompt reparation for harm suffered; and access to relevant information. They can also support the reintegration in society of demobilized forces, displaced persons and returning refugees, and support special initiatives for child soldiers and child abductees; and gender-sensitive approaches to transitional justice.39 They can also assist victims and witnesses with measures such as relocation and resettlement. Mechanisms will vary: truth-seeking/truth-telling mechanisms; reparation processes; institutional reform (including vetting); reconciliation commissions and commissions of inquiry are all possibilities. Whether an NHRI has responsibility for any of these roles will depend at least in part on its enabling statute or on other legislation that may confer additional powers. Some NHRIs have the power to deal only with matters that arise from the time that they were created; others have a broader mandate to address past abuses. A number of NHRIs have themselves been established as part of institutional reform in the transitional justice process. In 2009, the Rabat Declaration, adopted at the Seventh Conference of African Human Rights Institutions, highlighted the role of NHRIs in transitional justice in general as well as in facilitating and supporting transitional justice mechanisms and processes, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation and peace. African NHRIs were encouraged to give due attention to the practical recommendations of the Rabat Declaration with respect to monitoring and establishing transitional justice mechanisms. See, generally, “Round Table Proceedings Report” of the International Round Table on the role of national institutions in conflict and post-conflict situations (2006), available from http://www.nhri.net/ pdf/Final_report_RT_Belfast.pdf (accessed on 12 October 2010). 38 Sub-Committee on Accreditation, general observations, para. 5.1. 39 Transitional justice is a “range of processes and mechanisms associated with society’s attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These may include both judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international involvement (or none at all) and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof” (S/2004/616, para. 8). 37 27