UNDP-OHCHR Toolkit

module overview

Chapter 1
Introducing National Human
Rights Institutions

Chapter 2
Models of NHRIs

Chapter 3
Roles and Responsabilities of
NHRIs

Chapter 4
The Rule of Law and the NHRI

Chapter 5
NHRIs, Development and
Democratic Governance

module overview

Chapter 6
Situating NHRI Support in the UN Planning & Programming Process

Chapter 7
Pre-establishment Phase of NHRIs

Chapter 8
Establishing NHRIs

Chapter 9
Consolidation Phase:
Strengthening the Mature NHRI

Chapter 10
Paris Principles and Accreditation

3.6.3 The Human Rights Council and its Universal Periodic Review

NHRIs with “A status” ICC accreditation, the ICC and regional coordinating bodies of NHRIs (speaking on behalf of its “A status members”) can:

make an oral statement under all agenda items of the Human Rights Council;
submit documents, which will be issued with its own symbol number; and
take separate seating in all sessions

NHRIs that comply with the Paris Principles can participate independently and in their own right in UN Human Rights Council and in certain other UN bodies and meetings.

A review of the human rights records of each of the 192 UN Member States is carried out by the Human Rights Council in a four-year cycle. This is known as the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). It provides the opportunity for each State to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in its country and to fulfil its human rights obligations.

The UPR was created through the UN General Assembly on 15 March 2006 by resolution 60/251. Currently, no other universal mechanism of this kind exists. The UPR is a key element of the Council, and requires States to report on measures they have taken to implement all human rights and fundamental freedoms. The ultimate aim of this new mechanism is to improve the human rights situation in all countries and address human rights violations wherever they occur. The Human Rights Council is the principal intergovernmental body of the United Nations dealing with human rights made up of 47 States. UPR is a State-driven process, under the auspices of the Human Rights Council.

Source: OHCHR. Universal Periodic Review

Resolution 5/1 authorises the active engagement of NHRIs in the UPR mechanism by:

Submitting information for inclusion in the summary prepared by OHCHR of information provided by other relevant stakeholders;
Attending the UPR review in the Working Group;
Making general comments before adoption of the Working Group report in plenary;
Being involved in the follow-up to the recommendations (although the primary responsibility for this lies with the State).

As an example of the last point, in Germany the NHRI conducted seminars on concluding observations for various ministries.17

According to the OHCHR’s 2009 report, Survey on National Human Rights Institutions, NHRI participation in the Council’s UPR process was high, but interaction with the treaty bodies remained moderate. Participation in the Human Rights Council and interaction with its special procedures mandate holders was low, and interaction with other international mechanisms, conferences, workshops was minimal. Although the survey responses indicated that interaction with the regional human rights system was higher, examples of the types of such interaction referred to general regional interaction (e.g. through regional NHRI networks, OHCHR training etc), rather than formal interactions with the mechanisms of the regional human rights bodies. According to the OHCHR, “These participation rates show a limited familiarity with the international and regional systems. In fact, just over 50% of respondents had participated in training on the international human rights system. OHCHR and UNDP should therefore continue to focus on providing training to NHRIs on the international system. However, it should explore methods of doing so that are less resource-intensive for NHRIs and reach the broadest number of staff.”18