What is EFRIS?
EFRIS stands for European Union Fundamental Rights Information System. It is an online tool that brings together data and information from existing human rights databases operated by the United Nations (UN), the Council of Europe (CoE) and the EU. EFRIS bundles information covering the EU-27 Member States as well as those few additional states (currently Albania, the Republic of North Macedonia and Serbia) that per separate agreement fall within the Agency’s mandate. Where averages are displayed, these are based on EU Member States only.
Which information does EFRIS provide?
EFRIS covers:
- States’ commitments made to and under key human rights treaties, and
- States’ compliance with these commitments.
The compliance is based on assessments made by human rights mechanisms monitoring the respective human rights treaties. The tool provides UN, CoE and EU-level information. Findings from national mechanisms may be added in future(such as those national mechanisms that are established under international human rights treaties such as National Preventive Mechanisms under the UN anti-torture convention).
Human rights mechanisms
EFRIS covers most relevant human rights mechanisms such as thematic UN Special Procedures, UN Treaty Bodies, CoE mechanisms and, in the future will increasingly cover also EU mechanisms and EU sources.
Court decisions
EFRIS includes the case law of the European Court of Human Rights and it is envisaged that it will also include relevant case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Additionally, other international quasi-judicial bodies are included, such as UN treaty bodies. National courts are not planned to be included.
Expert and governmental bodies
EFRIS covers findings by expert bodies, as well as those from government expert bodies, such as some of the Council of Europe mechanisms.
Who develops EFRIS?
EFRIS is developed by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in close consultation with the UN and the CoE in particular, but also with input from other EU actors, Member States, as well as civil society organisations, businesses and representatives of entities such as national human rights institutions and academia.