UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW (UPR)

The Austrian League for Human Rights coordinates a large part of Austrian civil society within the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

What does UPR mean?

(U) The UPR process is an instrument for reviewing the human rights situation in UN member states. The UPR process covers all human rights, regardless of which international legal instrument they are enshrined in. It is a universal and comprehensive process.

(P) The UPR process is a periodic process. It takes place every 4-5 years. A period is also referred to as a ‘cycle’ within the framework of the procedure.

(R) And the UPR process is a peer review process by equals among equals. It forms the basis for recommendations made by all other United Nations member states to a country’s government before the Human Rights Council. In addition to the opinion of the government of the respective member state, the voice of civil society is also incorporated into the process of drafting the Human Rights Council report.

The states, as proponents, are therefore free to make recommendations to Austria on any human rights issue. Austria then has the option of ‘accepting’ the recommendation and thus promising to work on its implementation, or simply ‘taking note’ of it and thus not making this promise. However, all recommendations remain in the process. The recommendations are intended to serve the protection and enforcement of human rights, which the member states have committed themselves to uphold.

According to the international procedure before the Human Rights Council, this is followed by an implementation phase, also known as follow-up. Four to five years later, a further evaluation is carried out in the same procedure before the Human Rights Council. Some recommendations will have been fulfilled, some will still be in the process of implementation, and others may have been added. This marks the start of a new cycle of the UPR process.

The League supports the networking of NGOs and invites umbrella organisations from a wide range of human rights areas to participate in this report. More than 30 umbrella organisations with well over 300 member organisations were involved, giving as wide a range of NGOs as possible the opportunity to suggest improvements in their area of expertise and to make demands. But also to highlight positive developments.

Until now, it has been difficult to track whether the recommendations of the Human Rights Council are being implemented by the Austrian government. For this reason, we have developed the UPR tool (You can explore this link).

We believe that the transparency gained as a result can help to highlight human rights failures as well as progress and drive improvements.

See for yourself!