Addressing Competing Human Rights Claims: The Policy Approach of the Ontario Human Rights Commission

• Author: Shaheen Azmi
• Pages: 97-111

97

Chapter 2

Addressing Competing Human Rights

Claims: The Policy Approach of the Ontario

Human Rights Commission

Shaheen Azmi

A. Introduction

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) released its Pol-

icy on Competing Human Rights in April 2012,1 culminating a

six-year program of research and consultation focused on detail-

ing effective ways to address competing human rights claims. In

general, competing human rights claims are situations in which



to a dispute, thus complicating the normal approach to resolving

a human rights dispute where only one side claims a human right

in relation to an alleged violator of rights.

This chapter reviews the nature of human rights policy and

its development by the OHRC, discusses the OHRC’s rationale for

becoming involved in this policy activity, and reviews the ongoing

process employed to develop and promote this policy. The policy

development process employed by the OHRC included a policy

dialogue that was convened in March 2010, and for which most

of the chapters in this publication were developed.

The OHRC is the statutory human rights commission estab-

lished by the Ontario Human Rights Code.2 When it enacted the

1 Ontario Human Rights Commission, Policy on Competing Human Rights

(OHRC, 2012 online: OHRC www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-competing-

human-rights.

2 RSO 1990, c H.19 [Code].