SOAS Research Online

Abstract

UN Special Rapporteurs are independent human rights experts on global thematic or country-specific issues, who investigate human rights violations in states, develop international legal standards, and provide technical advice to states. This article provides, first, a brief overview of recent interventions by these experts and their historical origins. Second, it investigates the multiple meanings of the independence of these experts, based on their shared characteristics and the heterogeneous uses of independence. Finally, it analyzes the multiple professional dispositions that such actors embody through the example of Heiner Bielefeldt, the first German Special Rapporteur.