NGOs

• National consultation

According to the above mentioned resolution, “States are encouraged to prepare the information through a broad consultation process at the national level with all relevant stakeholders”. NGOs can seize this opportunity to run a national campaign to promote the UPR and bring it to the attention of the general public and the media.

• Submitting a report on a country’s situation

The review of a country during the Working Group is based on three reports:
 One, of about twenty pages, prepared by the State itself on its human rights situation.
 One prepared by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on “information contained in the reports of treaty bodies, special procedures, including observations and comments by the State concerned, and other relevant official United Nations documents, which shall not exceed ten pages” (Resolution A/HRC/5/1).
 Finally, the OHCHR will prepare a compilation of ten pages of all information sent by “other relevant stakeholders to the UPR” on the human rights situation of the State under review.

The term “other relevant stakeholders” is purposefully vague so no actor would be restricted from participating. Basically, anyone is allowed to send information to the OHCHR. NGOs without Consultative status, local NGOs and associations are more than welcome to participate. Nonetheless the OHCHR will only use credible and reliable information coming from identified and trusted sources.

NGO submissions have to follow General Guidelines to be taken into account. Please read them carefully and respect the template. Do not hesitate to provide an executive summary at the beginning to ease the work of the OHCHR.

To limit the amount of information received from NGOs, the OHCHR asks individual stakeholders to limit their official submission to a five page document, to which other information can be attached. When the information is submitted by a large coalition of NGOs, the official submission can reach ten pages.

The deadline for the submission of information is about six to eight months before the session. Submissions must be submitted and received by 12.00 pm Geneva time (CET) on the day of the given deadline and late submissions are not considered.

For deadlines for session 7, 8 and 9, see the box below.

The three base documents are usually available on the OHCHR website ten weeks before the start of the UPR working group.

See also the OHCHR Technical guidelines for stakeholders and its Information Note for NGOs regarding the UPR mechanism.

• Lobbying States

NGOs can lobby States in order to bring to their attention some specific issues and to obtain that such issues be addressed during the interactive dialogue, in the form of questions and/or recommendations. NGOs can also lobby to obtain specific recommendations to be made, so to facilitate the monitoring of the follow-up process.

When lobbying other States, there are different ways to be more efficient by:
. Addressing the delegation representative who is in charge of the UPR or the Human Rights Council
. Addressing States according to the thematic issues they address more often during the interactive dialogue.

• Attending the review

According to resolution A/HRC/RES/5/1, “Other relevant stakeholders may attend the review in the working group”. Which means NGOs will not be allowed to take the floor.

• Holding a parallel event

As during the Human Rights Council, NGOs have the possibility to hold parallel events during the session of the Working Group .

• Assessment meetings

NGOs can conduct assessment meetings in the days following the review of a specific State, in order to evaluate the review and the extent to which some issues have (or not) been addressed, and to prepare the follow-up.

• Press conference/release

NGOs can hold press conference and/or issue press releases on the reviews to give their assessment of the review.

• Oral statements

As resolution A/HRC/RES/5/1 puts it, it is possible for NGOs “to make general comments before the adoption of the outcome by the plenary,” which means that during the plenary session, before the member-States adopt the outcome, and after the State under Review and other States have spoken (20 minutes each), 20 minutes is allocated to NGOs to take the floor and make a statement.

• Written statements

As during any Human Rights Council plenary, NGOs can submit written statements under any item. UPR is item 6. Written statements have less impact than oral ones but they become official United Nations documents with a symbol.

For more details on how to take the floor or submit statements, see the HRC website.

The aim of the Universal Periodic Review is to help States improve the human rights situation. The outcome, a report, should contain recommendations, technical advice and goals to be achieved in the four years before the next review. During the following review, States will be judged on their accomplishments during these four years.

NGOs have a great role to play in monitoring efforts made by governments. They can:
 Make UPR recommendations public;
 Make sure they are implemented by the State under review.