The arduous path towards a National Human Rights Institution for Italy - A public policy analysis of the Italian Human Rights Protection System

The thesis examines the lack of a National Human Rights Institution (NHRI) in Italy, and aims at providing answers to the following research question: Which elements play a role in the public policy process of establishing a National Human Rights Institution and how do they affect the process? Therefore, the thesis first presents the history of National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), their current role, and their impact to protect and promote human rights domestically. Subsequently, the current situation of human rights in Italy will be analysed by providing an overview of the ratified international human rights treaties and relevant national law. Furthermore, the institutional human rights landscape in Italy is examined, focusing on the fact that Italy remains one of the last two EU countries which has not yet established an NHRI. Building upon this exceptional situation, in the next sub-chapter, all the past developments leading to the establishment of an NHRI are presented in a chronological order. Among such developments are the extraordinarily high number of failed draft bills to establish an NHRI (since 1989 until 2022, ending with the latest draft bill), the recommendations to Italy by civil society, various treaty bodies and national, regional, and international human rights organisations, as well other countries (UPR), and the pledges and commitments in various forms made by the Italian State. Subsequently, the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) is explained as the theoretical framework applied to explore this exceptional situation. The MSA is used to analyse policy making and agenda setting and conceptualises decision-making situations as three mutually independent streams: The Problem-Stream, which consists of issues that are perceived as problems; the Politics-Stream, which is characterised by public opinion, interest groups, and elements from the political-administrative system (the parliament, the government and the administration); and the Policy-Stream, which consists of different policy alternatives. Additionally, the three ripe streams must be coupled by a Policy-Entrepreneur during a window of opportunity in order for agenda change to occur. In the proposed analysis, the MSA is adapted in two aspects in order to apply it to the Italian political system: The first adaptation concerns the application to parliamentary systems and the related more important role of parties and their ideologies. The second adaptation concerns the part of the policy making process on which the case-study focuses on – policy formulation. The methodology used for the present analysis consists of a content analysis of the protocols of the sessions during which the latest draft bill to establish an NHRI was discussed. In the analysis itself, the adapted version of the MSA is applied to the policy formulation of the latest draft law on the establishment of an NHRI and the related relevant events and indicators. The three streams (Problem, Politics, Policy), the activity of policy entrepreneurs and the existence of policy windows are examined. The analysis shows that the problem stream (the lack of an NHRI) and the policy stream (a chosen alternative to solve the problem meaning the latest draft bill) were ripe, whereas the politics stream (the composition and behaviour of the First Commission in the Chamber of Deputies) was not ripe. Therefore, the efforts of the identified policy entrepreneurs failed to produce any effects, and the latest draft law failed to materialise before the government crisis and the elections in September 2022. Concluding, the analysis confirmed the following two hypotheses: A) Policy formulation in a parliamentary system fails if the policy stream contradicts the basic ideology of influential members of the politics stream. B) Both the problem and the politics stream must be ripe already at the previous stage of agenda setting in order to enable policy formulation.