Activities

UPR Info aims at promoting and strengthening the Universal Periodic Review. We produce analysis for NGOs, diplomats, academics and journalists to facilitate their understanding and participation in the process:

• Responses to recommendations

Recommendations are a key element of the Universal Periodic Review process. Due to their importance, UPR Info produces specific documents listing recommendations and responses to them per session and per State under Review.

See all our analysis on responses to recommendations here.

• Issue Analysis

Issue Analysis looks into how a particular issue is raised at the UPR by analysing both advance questions and recommendations. It consists of a chart and a fact sheet. The chart shows the overall occurrence of the issue and the fact sheet summarizes the chart and gives the top five States that received and made advance questions and recommendations on the issue.

See our Issue Analysis section here.

• States participation

These documents show the participation of States in the WG of the UPR: how many States participated from which regional group and how many Statements were made by each regional group.

 Session 6
 Session 5
 Session 4
 Overview session 1-2-3
 Session 3
 Session 2
 Session 1

We have developed a database on UPR recommendations. This unique tool, accessible at www.upr-info.org/database, allows to search recommendations through eight categories:

. State under Review (SuR)
. Recommending State
. Regional groups
. Organisations
. Response provided by the SuR
. Action (Exclusive!)
. Issues contained in each recommendation (Exclusive!)
. Session

The Action category is an innovative component offering the possibility to analyse recommendations through the specificity of the action requested. Developed by Professor McMahon from the University of Vermont with the support of UPR Info, this category creates a new approach to UPR recommendations by ranking them on a scale from 1 to 5:

1- Minimal action. Ex: “Share its experiences…”
2- Continuing action. Ex: “Continue its work…”
3- Considering action. Ex: “Consider ratifying…”
4- General action. Ex: “Improve women’s rights”
5- Specific action. Ex: “Amend the legislation…”

To know more about the database, please read our Help Guide.

Please also see our PowerPoint presentation used during our launch on March 18.

Video presentation of the database:

On Thursday 13th October, UPR Info organized an event to celebrate the end of the first cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in the Human Rights Council’s room of the Palais des Nations. This celebration, co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Switzerland, the Kingdom of Morocco and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, aimed at highlighting the achievements on human rights obtained during the first cycle, as well as the challenges and opportunities the second cycle would present. More than 250 people attended the event; such impressive presence demonstrated the interest of States and civil society actors in the UPR process.

The opening speeches were given by Ms. Kyung-wha Kang, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, and H.E. Laura Dupuy Lasserre, President of the Human Rights Council (HRC). A panel of experts representing different actors involved in the UPR process - States, National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI), Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) and Treaty Bodies – then shared experiences during the last four years and express hopes and expectations for the second cycle.

The UPR first cycle was considered to be a success from many points of view. Ms. Lasserre depicted the UPR mechanism as the “jewel of the HRC”, since it gave room to an open and frank dialogue among the States. According to the speakers, State participation was the main achievement of the first cycle, leading even the most skeptical ones to appreciate the whole mechanism: all the 192 United Nations (UN) member States were reviewed, 98% of them submitted written national reports and 80% were represented by ministers. Moreover, the number of voluntary mid-term reports increased, as Ms. Kang specified. In particular, she stated that “the UPR mechanism has the potential to be a catalyst for change”, furthering the practice and culture of human rights worldwide: standing invitations to Special procedures, as well as ratification of human rights treaties often coincided with the review.

As H.E. Ulises Canchola, Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico, remarked, UPR was a non political, not complicated mechanism, which brought all Members in the same place, with the same rules, offering a systematic, broader approach to the issue of human rights. The democratic dynamics of the mechanism were also underlined by speakers, since all countries, regardless their level of development or their political system had been reviewed. H.E. Omar Hilale, Ambassador of Morocco, did not hesitate to link the Arab Spring with the UPR: as a result of the increase of States’ transparency provided by the UPR, peoples have been asking for more democracy.

The UPR first cycle represented a unique opportunity for self reflection and a transparent tool to develop a constructive dialogue both at the international and national level, allowing States to have broad consultations with relevant stakeholders. In this regard, the review of the Working Group was made accessible to all thanks to the webcast, giving civil society, even in remote countries, the opportunity to discuss the outcomes. According to Mr. Hassan Shire Sheikh, Executive Director at East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project, this new UN mechanism embodied an excellent platform for civil society to engage, giving national NGOs the chance to access the human rights system in the UN. During the first cycle, most NGOs joined coalitions, which, like in Kenya, continued also after the review, and experienced a closer cooperation with NHRIs.

The UPR mechanism was considered by the speakers not to be perfect but perfectible. They all emphasized the importance of the second cycle of the UPR, starting in June 2012. As H.E. Omar Hilale, mentioned, the “second cycle will be the review of the UPR itself”, allowing us to draw conclusions on the effectiveness of the mechanism.

The speakers identified the main issues on which the second cycle should focus on, such as the nature of recommendations, their implementation and civil society engagement. During the first cycle, thousands of recommendations were produced, but some of them were vague and open-ended, therefore difficult to implement. Ms Kang suggested that in the second cycle the number of recommendations would become more manageable and their content more precise, so that their implementation could be tracked more easily. The follow-up will be essential and, according to the Deputy High Commissioner, a comprehensive system to track implementation of the recommendations, with appropriate indicators, should be developed. Similarly, the submission of mid-term reports was considered important. These reports would make the UPR an ongoing process instead of a review every four years, said Silverio Pinto Baptista, Deputy Provedor for Human Rights and Justice in Timor Leste. He noted, moreover, that civil society participation is limited to the preparation of a report, the consultation with States - which not always reflected NGOs view in their National Report - and a short speaking time during the Plenary of the HRC. Ms. Lasserre expressed her hope that States would reconsider rejected recommendations, paving the path for improvements. To this end, H.E. Peter Gooderham, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, declared that his country decided to implement also a recommendation which had been rejected, as a demonstration to their commitment to the UPR process. Finally, the implementation of the recommendations will be strengthened through cooperation with Treaty bodies. Ms. Dubravka Simonovic, expert from the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), explained that thanks to UPR collaboration, the level of information available on human rights situation in all States increased and major goals were achieved. She underlined that although the UPR and Treaty bodies remain different in scope and character, the former focusing on the global human rights issue and the latter focusing on individual conventions, they should work together on the implementation of common recommendations.

H.E Dante Martinelli, Permanent Representative of Switzerland, closed the event by reminding countries not to lower their attention on the UPR mechanism to ensure meaningful implementation. In this regard, he added NGOs and NHRIs play a key role in such task by lobbying States and cooperating with them during the second cycle.

An outcome of this celebration containing the main ideas shared for the second cycle is available here.

UPR Info was engaged in the 2011 Human Rights Council Review process with the support of the Open Society Foundation - Budapest through different projects.

• An analysis

We released early October an analysis looking into the seven first sessions of the UPR and assessing what is and is not working. This analysis contains concrete proposals to improve the mechanism and intends to contribute to the HRC review process by providing an analytical assessment of the UPR.

The Analytical assessment is available here.

• A workshop

We organised on the 7th of October a workshop for civil society. Around thirty international and national organisations gathered in Geneva to assess the mechanism and put forward concrete proposals to the review process.

• A joint contribution

Based on the discussions held during the workshop, we drafted a contribution containing seven key issues of the UPR which needed to be addressed in the context of the Human Rights Council review. This draft was then circulated to NGOs for review and was eventually signed on by 37 organisations. The contribution was presented to the HRC review Working Group on Wednesday 27th October through a statement on behalf of Geneva for Human Rights, a signatory organisation.

The Joint NGO Contribution is available here.

• A conference

We organised on Friday 19 November a conference on the UPR within the framework of the HRC Review. Around 40 participants representing States, NGOs, NHRIs, international and inter-governmental organisations, and the OHCHR gathered to discuss the follow-up, its assessment and the second and subsequent cycles.

A summary of this conference is available here.

• A joint statement

Following-up the joint submission submitted in October, we drafted a joint statement with 28 NGOs which assessed which of those seven proposals had been included in the Outcome, expressed disappointment at the content of the UPR modalities contained in the Outcome and called on the HRC and States to continue to improve the UPR mechanism in practice through the second cycle. The statement was delivered on behalf of Geneva for Human Rights on March the 18th during the General debate of item 6 at the HRC 16th session.

The statement is available here and the webcast here.

. Video of Prof. McMahon explaining the database and the five categories of action:

. Video of Professor McMahon summarizing the conclusions of his study on UPR recommendations:

. Summary of the side event:

On Thursday 3 December UPR Info held its first site event, entitled “Analysis of UPR Recommendations: Informing the 2011 HRC Review” which was attended by over 50 Government officials, NGO delegates and individuals. The event was chaired by Roland Chauville from UPR Info. Speaking were Professor Edward McMahon (University of Vermont), Muriel Berset (Swiss Delegation) and Marianne Lilliebjerg (Amnesty International).

Professor McMahon presented his analysis on the 6,000 UPR recommendations that have been made over the first five sessions. His analysis is based on a database of all recommendations, which allows for the recommendations to be sorted on, for instance, state receiving the recommendations, regional groups, but also topics raised and categories of action. The five categories of action Professor McMahon developed range from very general, light action that is relatively uncostly for a state to perform, to very specific and action-oriented high cost recommendations. He noted that recommendations calling for new general or specific action, rather than recommendations emphasising continuity or the consideration of certain action, accounted for two thirds of the recommendations.

Some other figures presented by the professor indicate that while the number of recommendations has been rising throughout sessions 1 to 4, session 5 showed a slight drop, which may or may not be indicative of a saturation point. Nevertheless, the percentage of recommendations accepted, as well as the percentage of specific action-oriented recommendations accepted is higher in session 5 compared to the previous sessions. What also became apparent from the analysis is that there are some regional differences in the use and acceptance of recommendations, as well as in the issues addressed by the recommendations. In general, Africa, Asia and parts of the EEG take a softer approach. Finally, the Professor concluded that how recommendations are phrased is critical. The aim should be for recommendations to be specifically implementable, while generating as many acceptances as possible.

Muriel Berset noted some specific characteristics that the UPR possesses, which also have an impact on the recommendations made and how they are used. She emphasised the universal nature of the UPR, as well as the fact that it is a cooperative mechanism in which every country so far has cooperated in a relatively constructive way. Furthermore, recommendations made within the context of the UPR are bilateral, rather than coming from a regional group, which can be considered an asset of the system. It is important also to think about continuity and a smooth transition from the first review cycle to the second review cycle. This involves questions like the practice regarding follow-up of recommendations. Ms Berset also noted the importance of having a coherent view of all recommendations made, also with a view to the second cycle of reviews.

Marianne Lilliebjerg drew attention to the importance of recommendations. First, they represent a tool to improve the human rights situation on the ground, which should be the ultimate goal of the UPR. Second, states can be held accountable both for accepted recommendations and for action suggested to other states. In her view, for the UPR to have a positive effect, recommendations should be concrete and measurable. With regard to the role of civil society, she noted that since NGOs do not have a direct role during the Working Group, they have to find a way to work with and influence the states that will be making the recommendations. Timing is very important in this regard, since state interventions are usually planned some time in advance.

McMahon’s presentation