The chairman of the North's Bill of Rights Forum may respond today to calls for planned legislation to be dropped.
Chris Sidoti, an international human rights expert, was understood to be in Australia when opposition to a Northern Ireland Bill of Rights emerged from the Church of Ireland this week.
This was later amplified by DUP Assembly member and Minister for the Environment Arlene Foster.
The Bill of Rights Forum declined to comment yesterday, but The Irish Times understands the trenchant criticisms of a Bill of Rights specific to Northern Ireland were met with some surprise but are taken seriously.
Opposition to a Bill emerged in this week's Church of Ireland Gazette, which claimed there was an "astounding lack of clarity" over the need for a Bill.
"There are those in the Stormont establishment who want a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland, as opposed to the UK as a whole, because they want Northern Ireland to relate more closely to the Republic of Ireland than to the rest of the UK," it said.
"A Bill of Rights - at least a quasi-constitutional type of document - would in fact be more inclined to put law into a straitjacket than does more usual legislation, which by nature is more of a 'living instrument'," said the Gazette.
It is also understood there was little suggestion of such opinion within the Church of Ireland at a meeting between its primate, the Rev Alan Harper, and Mr Sidoti.
Mr Sidoti told The Irish Times last year Northern Ireland did need its own legislation: "Principally, that there is a need for a Bill of Rights - that was agreed at the first meeting [ of the forum]. The second is that any Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland should not undercut or be inconsistent with the protections of international law or domestic law."
However, he admitted he understood why many unionists saw the push for a Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland as being more in tune with nationalist concerns. Pointing to the origins of nationalist involvement with the civil rights campaign of the late 1960s, he said that unionist suspicions of the agenda were "a hangover, a legacy of the Troubles".
Many unionists raised concerns about the push for a Bill, outline plans for which are due to be completed by the forum by March, during an Assembly debate in October.
The DUP said it views the Bill of Rights effort as anti-unionist. Assembly member Michelle McIlveen said: "What we have is a human rights sector in Northern Ireland which has been hijacked over the years for political purposes by anti-unionists."
Despite increased funding and the employment of further outreach workers from the unionist community, it is clear unionist concerns remain.