NGOs

• National consultation

According to resolution A/HRC/RES/5/1, “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/RES/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 the OHCHR Technical guidelines (updated in November 2011 for the second cycle). Please read them carefully. 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 document of 2815 words, to which annexes can be attached. When the information is submitted by a coalition of NGOs (two NGOs or more), the submission can reach 5630 words.

The deadline for the submission of information is about six to eight months before the session. Late submissions are not considered. For deadlines for session 14 (22 October - 5 November 2012), see the box below.

The three documents forming the basis of the Review as well as NGO submissions are usually available on the OHCHR website six to ten weeks before the start of the UPR working group.

See also the OHCHR Information Note for NGOs regarding the UPR mechanism.

• Lobbying States

NGOs can lobby States in order to bring to their attention specific issues and to obtain that such issues be addressed during the interactive dialogue in the form of questions and/or recommendations. Those issues can also be raised through advance questions.

Due to the high number of NGO submissions, not all the listed issues are brought to the attention of members of the Working Group nor included in OHCHR summaries. Therefore, lobbying is a crucial part of the process to make sure that issues of interest are raised during the interactive dialogue.

Lobbying can be made both in Geneva and in the State under Review:
. In Geneva: it is strongly advised to come at least one month before the date of review as drafting a statement takes time and notably consultations between the capital, the embassy in the country under review and Geneva. However, certain delegations will still consider questions and recommendations the days before the review but only on rare occasions. For more efficiency, make sure to contact the representative who is in charge of the UPR or the Human Rights Council. You can find the contact details of all missions here.
. In the State under Review (SuR): lobbying can also happen in the country under Review through embassies. This lobbying must be done 3 to 4 months before the date of review as the information has then to be sent to the capital and the mission in Geneva.

When meeting with delegates, whether in the country or in Geneva, it is important to concentrate on priority issues and present for each about 4 or 5 specific questions and recommendations in a short document of one or two pages. This will allow those delegates to easily incorporate them in their statements. For example of document, see the Advocacy Charter prepared by Kenyan NGOs.
Those recommendations should be action-oriented. On this issue, Professor Edward R. McMahon from the University of Vermont has developed a scale from 1 to 5 ranking the specificity of action requested by the recommendation (to learn more about this, see here). Recommendations labelled as category 5 are those containing a concrete measure to be implemented (ex: "Set up of a mechanism..") and not only an aim to reach (ex: "Eradicate.."). It is therefore strongly suggested to make category 5 recommendations to facilitate their implementation and assessment. To see example of category 5 recommendations as well as types of recommendations made at the UPR, please see our Database.

In order to find out which States to contact, we have produced documents which explain how certain issues are raised at the UPR and which list the five countries making most advance written questions and recommendations on them. Those “Issues analysis” are accessible here and on the drop down menu on the top right. You can also check our Excel sheet of advance written questions and our Database containing all recommendations made at the UPR as well as our statistics detailing the issues raised by each Recommending States. Please note that the troika members have not more influence than any other State and that they do not necessarily take the floor during the review.

• 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.

States have to implement the recommendations they have accepted and the voluntary pledges they have taken. At the next UPR, they will be reviewed on the implementation of those recommendations and pledges and on the human rights situation in the country since the previous review.

NGOs have a great role to play between two reviews. They can:
 Make those accepted recommendations and pledges public;
 Monitor their implementation;
 Engage in dialogue with the State reviewed to participate in their implementation.

In order to help NGOs knowing which recommendations were accepted, we produce a document per State under Review (SuR) listing all the recommendations received and providing the response given by the SuR to each of them. Those documents are available here.