Suwon City Publishes Human Rights Impact Assessment Report... Includes Results from the Past 10 Years

The city of Suwon in Gyeonggi Province has published the "2024 Human Rights Impact Assessment Report," which contains the results of human rights impact assessments conducted over the past decade.

Human rights impact assessment refers to the comprehensive activities of analyzing and evaluating in advance the impact that policies (projects) established and implemented by national and local governments may have on residents' human rights, ensuring that policies contribute to the protection and promotion of human rights.

When policies are established and implemented through human rights impact assessments, it is possible to predict their overall effect on citizens' human rights and make improvements in advance, thereby effectively protecting citizens' human rights in practice.

Since enacting the "Suwon City Human Rights Basic Ordinance" in 2013, Suwon has gradually institutionalized human rights impact assessments across all areas of administration.

Starting with human rights impact assessments of autonomous regulations in 2015, Suwon introduced assessments for polling stations in 2017 and for policies in 2018. The scope has been gradually expanded to embed the value of human rights into everyday life.

The recently published human rights impact assessment report records the progress of human rights impact assessments conducted over the past ten years, based on last year's research titled "Diagnosis of Suwon City's Human Rights Impact Assessment System and Establishment of a Human Rights Impact Assessment Model," independently conducted by Suwon City's Human Rights Officer.

'Suwon City’s Recently Published Human Rights Impact Assessment Report'

From 2015 to 2024, a total of 1,108 autonomous regulation human rights impact assessments were conducted, with 123 recommendations for improvement, and a departmental acceptance rate of 93.7% for those recommendations.

From 2018 to 2024, a total of 138 policy (project) human rights impact assessments were conducted, with 77 recommendations for improvement, and a 100% departmental acceptance rate for those recommendations.

The polling station human rights impact assessments, initiated ahead of the 19th presidential election in 2017, were conducted five times including the 2018 local elections, the 2020 National Assembly elections, the 20th presidential election in 2022, and the 2024 National Assembly elections.

A representative from the Suwon Human Rights Center stated, "We will create a model and leading human rights city so that the value of human rights can take root in citizens' daily lives," and added, "We hope this human rights impact assessment report will be helpful to other local governments aiming to institutionalize human rights impact assessments."