What professional expertise is required for NPM members and staff?

For an NPM to be effective, the members and staff must have relevant expertise. In addition, the NPM, as an institution, should gather, collectively, the required variety and balance of different fields of professional knowledge and practical experience that enable it to effectively perform its mandate.

Some professional backgrounds are particularly relevant to NPM work, including:

• Lawyers.
• Medical doctors (including general practitioners, forensic specialists and psychiatrists).
• Psychologists.
• Human rights specialists (particularly specialised in detention issues).
• Social workers.
• Anthropologists.
• Persons with prior expertise in the field of in policing, migration, administration of justice, and places of detention.
• Persons with particular experience in working with groups in situations of vulnerability.
• The entire institution, with its members and staff, should have, at least, legal and medical expertise.

The members’ expertise can be supplemented by a pool of experts to accompany their work.

As the SPT guidelines state, “members of the NPM should collectively have the expertise and experience necessary for its effective functioning […] the NPM should ensure that its staff have between them the diversity of background, capabilities and professional knowledge necessary to enable it to properly fulfil its NPM mandate. This should include, inter alia, relevant legal and health-care expertise.”