A total of 2111 recommendations were made in 954 statements during the 13th session. The average number of recommendations made by recommending States to each State under Review was 2.2, which is fewer than during the first cycle. However, among the 39 States which had committed to make only two recommendations to each State under Review, 11 actually failed to uphold their commitment: Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Ireland, Japan, Maldives, the Republic of Moldova, Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Thailand.
Dates of the 15th, 16th and 17th sessions of the Working Group were published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Sessions will be held from 21 January to 1 February 2013, from 22 April to 3 May 2013 and from 21 October to 1 November 2013.
At UPR Info, we are pleased to announce the inclusion of the recommendations from the 12th session of the UPR Working Group (3 – 14 October 2011) into our database, which marks the incorporation of all the recommendations and voluntary pledges from the first cycle of the UPR process (2008-2012). A total of 21’353 recommendations were made by 154 countries to the 193 UN member States, among which 4’231 were focusing on international instruments, 3’692 on women’s rights and 3’442 on the rights of the child. More analyses regarding the entire first cycle will be available on our website soon.
The next round of pre-sessions will be held from 27 to 31 August to discuss the human rights situation of the countries to be reviewed at the 14th UPR session (22 October – 5 November): Argentina, Benin, Czech Republic, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, Japan, Pakistan, Peru, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Ukraine and Zambia. All permanent missions are invited. CSOs interested in participating and taking the floor need to fill in the form and return it via email by July 20th.
Our Follow-up Programme is currently assessing the implementation of recommendations at mid-term for the 16 States reviewed in December 2008 (session 6). 14 Mid-term Implementation Assessments (MIAs) pertaining to session 6 have been published so far. Norway’ MIA is the first to contain comments from the three main actors: the Government, the national institution and civil society. We started working on session 7 and will publish its related MIAs in October. A new kind of actors will start participating in the Programme: several UN Agencies (UNICEF, UNHCR, UNCT mainly) have already confirmed their participation. More than ever, the Follow-up Programme will be a broad, precise and balanced photography of the improvements on the ground two years after the review.
Finally, an NGO that we supported to participate in the pre-session on Bahrain last March has been nominated to the prestigious Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders. We wish good luck to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights and we will be closely following the ceremony on 2 October 2012 in Geneva.
Please find more detailed information on these issues in the news below.
Best regards,
UPR Info