The decision to draft a bill of rights heralds a momentous event in any country's history. In the latter half of the twentieth century, crafting a document that addresses the fundamental rights of individuals and groups and their relationship to the state has typically involved a flurry of public consultations, negotiations, drafting, and rewrites. Increasingly, however, such endeavours remain incomplete without some effort to observe, understand, and account for comparative trends related to human rights on the international level as well as in other states. Although writing about constitutions specifically, A E Dick Howard's observations are equally relevant to standalone bills of rights:

Numerous examples across a wide range of states confirm this tilt in favour of consulting international norms. Recent drafting efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, New Zealand, South Africa, and all the states of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact leap to mind, to name but a few. In each of these cases — and with varying degrees of success — national drafters held their country's unique cultural, historical, and political experiences up against the collective database of international experiences to divine commonalities, mutual priorities, shared aspirations, and points of divergence.