Scottish Human Rights Law Group

By Kasey Lowe

One of the most progressive features of the Human Rights Council is the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).  The UPR was created by a UN General Assembly resolution on 15 March 2006.[1] The UPR is a unique process which involves a review of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States once every four years.  The UPR is a State-driven process and provides the opportunity for each State to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfil their human rights obligations, including those obligations under the UN Human Rights treaty regime. The UPR is designed to ensure equal treatment for every country when their human rights situations are assessed even where the particular State is not a party to all human rights treaties.

The UPR is a cooperative, interactive process and all UN Member States will have been reviewed by 2011.  There is no other universal mechanism of its kind.  The goal of the peer review process is to address human rights violations and best practice among Member States equally and in an unbiased fashion.  Reports are submitted by (1) the Member State, (2) UN treaty bodies, UN entities and independent human rights experts/groups, and (3) stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations and national human rights institutions, such as the Scottish Commission on Human Rights.  The fact that NGOs may participate in the reporting process is considered extremely important to the process as the mere fact that these groups may report and be present to contradict information in national reports encourages more thorough reporting by states.

The United Kingdom was reviewed in April 2008 during the first review session alongside fifteen other countries including Finland, Bahrain, South Africa and the Czech Republic.  The national report included information on the devolved administrations, thus a review of human rights issues specific to Scotland were highlighted. Recommendations for improvement in the United Kingdom made by individual members of the Human Rights Council focused on the following themes:[2]

-Corporal punishment with respect to children

-Greater coherence and more effective protection for women

-Incarceration of children

-Counter-terrorism legislation compliance with the human rights standards

-Protection of protesters’ right to freedom of expression

-Rights of detained persons

-Length of pre-trial detentions

-Rights of the elderly

-Rights of Asylum Seekers

-Possibility of a written constitution

-Prison overcrowding

-Protection of children of migrants and refugees

Other recommendations included that the UK should give further consideration to ratifying the remaining UN human rights treaties and withdrawing certain reservations to treaties to which it has already acceded.

The UPR is now one-third of the way through the first round.  The merits of the system and procedural aspects will be assessed following conclusion of the first round of reviews.  If all 192 UN Member States comply with the UPR, which they are expected to do, the significance of the process will be confirmed.  Integration of human rights into the domestic agenda is the largest obstacle to the realisation of these rights.  Even if the progress on the ground is slow, compliance with the reporting system constitutes a concerted, universal effort on the part of the UN Member States to bring human rights issues to the forefront.  This public discourse on the state of human rights is more an insight into certain countries than many practitioners could have imagined in the not too distant past.  Even if the UPR provides only a glimpse into the realities of rights on the ground, it must be remembered that it only takes a small spark to start a blazing fire.

The complete national report by the UK can be found here.

The report of the working group in the UK review can be found here.

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[1] UNGA Resolution 60/251, 15 March 2006.  This resolution also established the Human Rights Council, which carries out the UPR.

[2] Universal Periodic Review:  Report of the Working Group on the Universal periodic Review United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, UN Doc. A/HRC/8/25, 23 May 2008.

Commentaries, International Law