NHRC Bill 2026: Inviting an international review Bangladesh cannot afford

Illustration: TBS

Parliament reconvenes on 27 August with the National Human Rights Commission Bill 2026 likely on its agenda. Cleared by the Cabinet on 10 August, it goes before a chamber controlled by a two-thirds ruling-party majority. 

Passage of the Bill is therefore not in doubt. The more consequential question is how the law will be read outside Parliament.

This is the new government's first legislation on a human rights institution. It follows April's repeal of the 2025 Ordinance, on the stated ground that a stronger law would follow. The government will present the Bill as an improvement on the Awami League's 2009 Act. But the international body accrediting these institutions will assess the enacted text, not the government's description of it.

That body is the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions, or GANHRI. It measures national human rights institutions against the Paris Principles, the international standards for independence and effectiveness. 

Bangladesh already holds GANHRI's lowest accredited status: Status B. The Bill makes a return to Status A even more difficult. More immediately, it creates grounds for a special review of the status Bangladesh still has.

Bangladesh starts from Status B

GANHRI has held Bangladesh's NHRC at Status B since shortly after its inception and has re-confirmed it since. In South Asia, only the Maldives shares this lowest level; all others are at Status A.

The reasons were clear from the outset. GANHRI was concerned that, under the 2009 Awami League-era law, the NHRC could not investigate law-enforcement and security agencies. GANHRI also objected to a selection process dominated by government appointees and to senior staff being seconded from ministries.

The 2026 Bill does not resolve these critical problems. Section 19 is the most serious example. When a complaint concerns the police, RAB or another disciplined force, the Commission is barred from beginning with an independent investigation. Instead, it must first ask the accused institution to investigate itself. Only later, after an indefinite delay and an unsatisfactory response, may the Commission return to its ordinary powers.

The Commission has no evidence of its own against which to test the force's account. On what basis the Commission can rule a force's account of its own conduct "unsatisfactory" is therefore unclear. The delay also matters. Custody registers, CCTV footage, call data and medical records may disappear or be altered. By the time the Commission is legally able to act, crucial evidence will be gone and victims will have few practical avenues for redress.

In contrast, the 2025 interim-era Ordinance had allowed independent investigations by the NHRC's specialised investigation team. Despite the Law and Home Ministers promising in Parliament a better law than the Ordinance, the new Bill removes that safeguard and revives the very problem that damaged Bangladesh's accreditation in the first place.

The government has the majority to pass the Bill without alteration. It can use the same majority to correct the Bill too.

The same pattern appears elsewhere. Minority representation is no longer guaranteed. The government and ruling party retain substantial influence over the selection committee. The Commission loses its statutory voice in setting its budget. The National Preventive Mechanism, which is meant to inspect prisons, police stations and other places of detention, no longer has a separate and secured budgetary allocation.

The Bill does contain some improvements over 2009. Commissioners will be full-time, compensation orders will be enforceable, and the Commission will have its own investigators. But those investigators cannot be used against disciplined forces, where independent scrutiny is most important. Also, a detention-inspection mechanism may have legal powers on paper but still achieve very little if it lacks guaranteed resources.

These are the points GANHRI and the international community will examine. The question is not whether the Bill contains anything useful. The question is whether the Commission will be independent and effective when the State itself stands accused. On the present text the Cabinet approved, it will not.

Why backsliding increases the exposure

The international risk comes not only from failing to improve. The government is withdrawing safeguards that were already part of Bangladeshi law under the 2025 Ordinance. That turns the story from slow progress under the 2009 law into backsliding from the 2025 Ordinance. For accreditation purposes, backsliding is more damaging than a failure to make progress.

GANHRI can initiate a special review when an institution's circumstances change in a way that may affect compliance with the Paris Principles. Replacing the NHRC's governing law with one that narrows its independence and mandate is precisely the kind of change that can attract scrutiny.

This Bill will not take Bangladesh to Status A. Instead, the country will have to defend the Status B it already holds. In serious cases, a special review can lead to suspension or removal of accreditation altogether. Bangladesh has not been reviewed since 2015, although the normal cycle is five years. Even without a special review, Bangladesh's ordinary accreditation review is already overdue.

What the government stands to lose

An adverse finding would be more than another domestic argument over the Bill. It would be a published technical assessment by the international body established to determine whether national human rights institutions meet the required standards. It would remain on the public record and be cited in later UN and treaty-body reviews of Bangladesh.

That matters because the government is trying to attract foreign investment and build confidence in the country's new direction. Although investors do not make decisions on a human rights rating alone, they do care about political risk, the rule of law and whether institutions can be trusted. An adverse GANHRI finding would suggest that safeguards enacted in the name of reform can be withdrawn when they become inconvenient. Foreign governments and development partners would read it in much the same way.

This is also relevant to Bangladesh's wider international standing. The British High Commissioner recently noted that Bangladesh is among the top five sources of asylum claims in the United Kingdom. That already makes questions about the availability of protection inside Bangladesh especially sensitive. An adverse GANHRI finding could provide applicants and their lawyers with authoritative international material to support an argument that domestic institutions cannot independently investigate abuses by the State.

The new government has presented itself as a break from the Awami League era. If its first law on a human rights institution weakens the Commission, that can no longer be explained as an inherited problem from the past. It becomes this government's choice. That will make it harder to ask foreign partners to trust its reform agenda.

Such adverse exposure is avoidable. The Bill need not be withdrawn. Parliament can restore independent investigation of disciplined forces, independence of the selection process, guaranteed representation from ethnic or disadvantaged communities, a formal role for the Commission in proposing its budget, and protected funding for the National Preventive Mechanism.

The government has the majority to pass the Bill without alteration. It can use the same majority to correct the Bill too. A country seeking investment and international confidence should not be seen to weaken the institution meant to ensure that its citizens can obtain protection at home.

Nabila Idris served on the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances and the National Human Rights Commission.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.