Shadow Report Award

This Award was focused on human rights issues.

Applications are no longer being accepted for this Award.  This page is retained for information purposes only to provide detail on historic awards made and the purpose of the Award.

New Zealand is a party to a number of United Nations human rights treaties which require New Zealand to periodically report on its compliance with the substantive provisions of those treaties. These periodic reports are the subject of consideration and questioning of representatives of the New Zealand government, in public, by the monitoring bodies established under those treaties.

For a number of years now, most of the monitoring bodies have permitted non-governmental organisations to provide supplementary information or present alternative information to those monitoring bodies in order to better inform them as to the true state of affairs as to human rights compliance within the relevant jurisdiction – Shadow Reports.

The Foundation believes that shadow reporting is a valuable contributor to the effectiveness of treaty monitoring and, recognising the resource constraints that may be limiting NGO participation in this process, established the Shadow Report Award in order to support a person or body in the preparation of shadow reports for, and/or attendance at, the presentation of the periodic reports before, United Nations human rights monitoring bodies acting under human rights instruments that they monitor.

Awards  of up to $10,000 were made between 2012 and 2019 as New Zealand’s reporting obligations came up for review.  Details of recipients follow.

Shadow Report Award Recipients

2019 : National Council of Women of New Zealand – Te Kaunihera Wahine O Aotearoa Alternate (mid-term) report to UN Monitoring Committee for the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) About the recipient
2017 : Human Rights Foundation of Aotearoa New Zealand Shadow reports to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the UN Human Rights Council universal periodic review (UPR) About the recipient
2015 : National Council of Women of New Zealand – Te Kaunihera Wahine O Aotearoa Shadow report to UN Committee for the Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) About the recipient
2013 : Acclaim Otago Inc. Shadow report to UN Committee for the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities About the recipient
2012 : Human Rights Foundation of Aotearoa New Zealand Shadow Report to the UN Committee for the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination About the recipient