Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights

SNAP is Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights. Its vision is a Scotland where everyone can live with human dignity.

SNAP fulfils key recommendations from the United Nations and the Council of Europe. It has been praised internationally for its collaborative, multi-stakeholder approach, and is regularly cited in reports to the UN about Scotland’s implementation of its international human rights obligations.

Image depicting graphic outline of people shapes in different colours

Developing SNAP 2

Since late 2017, work has been taking place to develop Scotland’s second National Action Plan for Human Rights (SNAP 2). SNAP 2 will be published in Spring 2023.

SNAP 1

Scotland’s first SNAP (SNAP 1) was launched in 2013.

From 2013 to 2017, SNAP 1 delivered over 50 actions in areas as diverse as criminal justice, housing, health and social care. Actions included pilot projects to test human rights based approaches in practice; national innovation forums to spark creative action on complex human rights issues; and action research projects on specific rights concerns.

During these four years, many SNAP actions seeded longer term programmes of work that continue to drive improvements in Scotland’s human rights laws, policies and practices today. For example, the work of the National Taskforce on Human Rights Leadership can be traced back directly to SNAP action in this area. Making Rights Real, Scotland’s grassroots human rights organisation, is firmly rooted in the Housing Rights in Practice pilot project pioneered through SNAP.

End of page.