The OIC’s Independent Permanent Human Rights commission: An early assessment

As part of DIHR's new theme on human rights and universality, Matters of Concern presents a series of papers discussing contemporary challenges to the legitimacy of universal human rights through analyses of key actors, dynamics and discourses.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is an intergovernmental organization established in 1969 with the purpose of strengthening solidarity among Muslims. Consisting in 57 member states, the OIC often refers to itself as 'the UN of the Muslim world'. But unlike the UN, the OIC has historically challenged the notion of universal human rights, instead promoting a conception of Islamic human rights. The establishment of the OIC's Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) in 2011 signaled a newfound commitment to human rights issues within the OIC. But has the IPHRC lived up to the expectations?

Apart from giving a brief history of the IPHRC, this paper discusses four reasons that indicate that the IPHRC is in fact moving in the wrong direction: its shift away from universalism, its tendency to present biased human rights coverage, its lack of grounding in human rights discourse, and the absence of collaboration with international human rights organizations. Against this background, the paper presents a set of recommendations, prepared by a group of human rights experts, that outline ways for the IPHRC to better fulfill its mandate to protect and promote human rights in the Muslim world.​

About the author

Turan Kayaoglu is Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Associate Professor of International Relations at University of Washington Tacoma, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. He has a PhD in Political Science from University of Washington Seattle. Kayaoglu’s research focuses on the intersection of religion, human rights, and international relations theory, with a particular focus on how Islamic actors advance their goals in international organizations.

He has published extensively on these topics, including ‘Giving an Inch only to Lose a Mile: Muslim States, Liberalism, and Human Rights in the United Nations’ (Human Rights Quarterly 2014), and ‘A Rights Agenda for the Muslim World? The Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s Evolving Human Rights Framework’ (Brookings Working Paper 2013), and he is currently working on a book on the OIC. Kayoglu is Editor-in-Chief of the Muslim World Journal of Human Rights.