On 8 May 2026, Alkarama sent a new letter to Dr Hala bint Mazyed Altuwaijri, President of the Saudi Human Rights Commission, the country’s National Human Rights Institution (NHRI), calling on her, within the framework of the Commission’s mandate, to encourage and ensure the effective implementation of several opinions of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) and decisions of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) concerning Saudi Arabia.
This was Alkarama’s second submission to the Commission on this issue. A first letter, sent on 8 March 2024, had already addressed the implementation of decisions by United Nations mechanisms, including those calling for an end to arbitrary detention. Alkarama had then called on the NHRI to intervene within the framework of its mandate to promote and protect human rights, which notably includes monitoring the implementation of decisions issued by international mechanisms whose competence has been recognised by the Kingdom.
In the absence of any response to this first approach, Alkarama renewed its appeal in May 2026, calling on the NHRI to fully exercise the functions falling within its mandate, particularly by contributing to the monitoring and implementation by the national authorities of decisions issued by United Nations mechanisms.
From commitments to cooperate to their implementation in practice
During Saudi Arabia’s most recent Universal Periodic Review, on 22 January 2024, the Saudi delegation, which included representatives of the NHRI, reaffirmed the Kingdom’s willingness to cooperate with international human rights mechanisms.
Such cooperation includes, in particular, following up on their decisions and taking the necessary measures to ensure their effective implementation. In this context, the NHRI has a particular role to play, given its mandate to promote and protect human rights and to monitor the implementation of the international instruments to which the Kingdom is a party.
Yet, nearly two and a half years later, the absence of any response to Alkarama’s démarches directly highlights the limitations of the effective exercise of this mandate and, more broadly, the difficulties faced by the NHRI in exercising it independently from the authorities. By failing to follow up on requests aimed at facilitating the implementation of decisions issued by United Nations mechanisms, the NHRI deprives its mandate of any concrete impact in monitoring these decisions and reveals an institution whose intervention remains, in practice, essentially formal, to the detriment of the requirements of independence and effectiveness attached to the status of a national human rights institution.
Monitoring UN decisions at the national level
For Alkarama, the adoption of an opinion or decision by a United Nations mechanism does not mark the end of the process, but rather the starting point for follow-up with the national authorities.
The 8 May 2026 letter identified several WGAD opinions and CRPD decisions that remain to be implemented, including those concerning Safar bin Abdulrahman Al-Hawali and Salman Fahed Alodah. Alkarama called on the NHRI to exercise the functions falling within its mandate and contribute to their effective implementation.
To date, no response has been provided to this démarche. Alkarama therefore renews its call on the NHRI to take the measures falling within its remit and contribute to giving effect to decisions issued by United Nations mechanisms. Saudi Arabia’s commitments to international cooperation must now be translated into concrete action through the national follow-up of international decisions.