인권영향평가(HRIAs)의 현실과 과제─자치법규 인권영향평가를 중심으로─

Human rights impact assessment is a process of checking whether the projects or policies promoted by public and private actors who exert a great influence on human life are in line with the realization and protection of human rights in terms of their goals, processes, and contents. Internationally, principles and guidelines for evaluation that generally converge around the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights established in 2011 and the Guiding Principles on Human Rights Assessments of Economic Reforms established in 2018 have been presented, but in Korea, for the so-called human rights impact assessments of municipal ordinances, which check whether municipal ordinances have elements that go against the protection of human rights guaranteed by basic rights under the constitution and international human rights conventions, etc., without statutory basis. As the contents of human rights impact assessments are already partially reflected in various impact assessment systems, it is argued that it is necessary to properly synthesize them and systematize them into an integrated impact assessment system. This is because a more rational system design can be sought from a procedural point of view. Furthermore, the reality of the current human rights impact assessments of municipal ordinances is underdeveloped in terms of establishing a methodology to secure an appropriate basis for the evaluation. This is a serious imbalance factor in view of the fact that overseas HRIAs-related organizations require that data collection and analysis steps for evaluation be structured by qualitative and quantitative research methods. In this study the problem of normative, procedural, and methodological aspects faced by the human rights impact assessments of municipal ordinances in Korea is examined, and the appropriate direction for improvement is sought by comparing it with overseas HRIAs cases.