Following the adoption of the law in 2014 and its implementing decree in 2017, the Ivorian civil society, in collaboration with the National Human Rights Council, engages in the process of setting up the protection mechanism for human rights defenders. Establishing this mechanism is a crucial step to keep reinforcing the protection of human rights defenders in Cote d’Ivoire.
Since the adoption of the law in 2014, an implementation decree was adopted in 2017. This decree specifies in its article 18 that “the protection of human’s right defenders is ensured by the State, with the assistance of the National Human Rights Commission of Cote d’Ivoire “. However, to ensure this mechanism has the trust of civil society, as indicated in section 34 in the model law, it remains important that it is hosted and led through an independent mechanism such as the NHRC. In order to effectively implement the mechanism and for such a power to be delegated to the NHRC to host the mechanism, an interministerial decree must be adopted by the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence, State Secretariat for Human Rights and the Ministry of Interior , who explicitly mention it.
