Netherlands Institute for Human Rights Visit

7 May 2015

Commissioners and staff enjoyed meeting Laurien Koster, President of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights today. Laurien visited Commission offices in Belfast and provided a practical session around the capacity building of human rights structures.

Notes to Editors:

1. Laurien Koster is President of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights which was established in 2012. In the preceding years she was - as president of the Equal Treatment Commission - leading in the process of establishing the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights, a national human rights institute, in which the Equal Treatment Commission has been fully integrated. Laurien was a lawyer at the Amsterdam Bar. Afterwards she was a magistrate and has a broad experience in many sectors of the judiciary. At managerial and administrative level – for example as president of the District Court of Alkmaar –she was responsible for various transformation processes within the judiciary like strategies to increase customer orientation and accessibility. On several occasions she has contributed to capacity building of human rights structures and the judiciary abroad.

2. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission is an independent statutory body first proposed in the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement (1998) and established in 1999 by the Northern Ireland Act (1998). It is answerable to Parliament at Westminster.