CE – 2: Human Rights Law

Q: Do you believe UPR is an effective process? or is it an example of ritualism ?

Comment.

- N.Bavithran (BC0140018)

Answer:

1. Introduction

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a new human rights mechanism of the Human
Rights Council (HRC) created on March 15, 2006 by the UN General Assembly resolution
60/251. The UPR reviews the fulfilment by all 192 UN member countries on their human
rights obligations and commitments, as well as their progress, challenges, and needs for
improvement. Countries are reviewed every four years. The UPR was created in response to
criticism that previous UN mechanisms focused too much on certain regions. The UPR is
designed to be applied more universally and uniformly. The UPR has its own strengths like
universality and public documentation to the engagement between countries and involvement
of different stakeholders, while there are criticism as to the body being a mere ritualism
which is nothing but a ritual without that dynamic quality or a body merely on paper this is
said as the UPR is considered to have superficiality, continued politicization, lack of punitive
sanctions as stated by its critics. Therefore, I agree to the fact that UPR is commendable step
yet it lacks few solutions for the existing problems. Hence, only when these criticisms are
overcome the UPR shall become not just a powerful but also a truly effective body.

2. Primary Strengths and Weaknesses of the UPR

The strengths of the UPR lie in the following:

 Universality
 Public Documentation, Catalyst, and Accessibility
 Engagement between Countries
 Involvement of Different Stakeholders: OHCHR and NGOs

While, the weaknesses of the body as stated by the critics are:

 Superficiality
  Politicization
 Lack of Punitive Sanctions and Surplus of Empty Rhetoric

Firstly the strengths of the UPR lies in its universality. Many countries felt that equal
attention was not provided to all UN Member States and in some countries serious issues of
human rights violation remained without discussion this was the main reason as to why the
previously existing UN mechanism was replaced with UPR. Before the UPR was established,
it was difficult to imagine the human rights situations of powerful countries under public or
peer scrutiny. Through the universal mechanism, the Council has examined country situations
better. The second strength is of Public Documentation, Catalyst, and Accessibility as there
are documents prepared and there is now proper evaluation of every state’s human rights
records and what needs to be done. In this way, the UPR serves as a influencer for other
instruments in the UN human rights protection system. And the third strength is the ability
and engagement between Countries which is one of the main sources of success for the UPR
is the fact that it is a shared experience for governments in which all States both make and
receive recommendations from their peers these engagement has often led to bilateral
assistance agreements. And finally there is an involvement of Different Stakeholders for
example the OHCHR supports the UPR process in numerous ways by developing training
modules and briefs States and it functions to safeguard and facilitate the entire process.
Lastly, NGOs play an important role in monitoring the process.

The Primary Challenges to the UPR, firstly, include superficiality as the time for review for
each country is too less and many have criticized the superficial nature of the UPR. In this
time, it is impossible to address all the human rights issues within a country, especially
considering the amount of information that goes into reviews as the UPR’s session is a
political and discussion-based process. The second challenge faced by the body is
politicization since the UPR interactive dialogue is primarily conducted on an
intergovernmental basis there is a danger that the process becomes overly politicized. In a
number of cases, governments have been able to avoid critical assessments and support of
other country human rights record to maintain friendly relations thereby, undermining the
UPR’s principle of transparency and objectivity, as well as its goal of engendering
meaningful discussion around human rights records and situations. Thirdly, the UPR lacks
the power to grant punitive sanctions like many mechanisms within the UN system, the UPR
lacks punitive sanctions in cases of non-compliance or non-implementation. The
recommendations are nonbinding and after the discussions and reports in Geneva, the SuR is
free to implement what it sees fit. The UPR operates as a cooperative mechanism that is non-
adversarial in nature. Therefore there is an inherent danger of this mechanism just becoming
a talking shop or a mere ritualism but this is how it works in politics.

3. Conclusion

As mentioned before, the principal strength of the UPR lies in its universality. Therefore, the
entire exercise is in danger if even one State fails to cooperate as all states face human rights
challenges. Though the mechanism of Universal periodic Review is seen as one which is
transparent and impartial when compared to the earlier commission which had the tag of
being political in its approach, the actual effectiveness of Universal Periodic Review depends
on the level of political pressure that one state can impose on another so that the state will
take their human rights obligations seriously and is therefore stated as a mere ritualism by it
critics.