The Paris Principles have proved to be highly influential – and also beyond their original scope. Even though national human rights bodies were foreseen to complement the system of human rights treaties as early as in the mid-1940s, the idea did not truly take off until decades later. The 1965 UN convention on racial discrimination had, in a rudimentary way, managed to include a reference to such bodies (in Article 14(2)). Suggestions to consider such bodies were also made when drafting the two 1966 UN covenants but were ultimately rejected.

The role of NHRIs finally became more clear with the 1993 Vienna world conference on human rights. At this conference, States signed on to the idea of establishing or appointing national human rights institutions (NHRIs) based on the adoption of the Paris Principles in 1991 (subsequently approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993). This happened in the light of the new international human rights agenda emerging after the end of the Cold War and aimed to strengthen the implementation of human rights norms and standards as they had been developed in past decades. Human rights were to be transferred from the international conventions into the everyday lives of people and regarded as integral parts of any democratic governance system. For this to be realised, strong national institutions were and are needed.