Complementing UN Human Rights Efforts Through Universal Periodic Review

Abstract The UN undertakes numerous human rights activities. Various UN entities have been established solely to promote and protect human rights, such as the Human Rights Council and the human rights treaty bodies. Others, such as the Security Council, have mandates intrinsically connected to human rights. Furthermore, a variety of UN specialized agencies, programmes and funds work in areas associated with human rights. However, the work these entities undertake lacks coordination. In his 2020 Call to Action, UN Secretary-General António Guterres spoke of the need to enhance ‘synergies between human rights and all pillars of the work of the United Nations’ and encouraged the use of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process as a way of doing so. Furthermore, one of the ‘principles’ of UPR is that it should ‘complement and not duplicate other human rights mechanisms’. There has been little exploration of the extent to which UPR does, in fact, complement the UN’s other work in human rights. This article seeks to fill that gap. Drawing on data from the first three cycles of UPR, it demonstrates the extent to which states have complemented UN efforts to protect and promote human rights in UPR recommendations. Building on these empirical observations, it explores how UPR recommendations could be used to further coordinate and reinforce the UN’s human rights work by avoiding generic references to the UN, expanding their focus beyond the ‘core’ UN human rights bodies to engage with the work of all UN entities, and encouraging engagement with all aspects of a particular entity’s mandate.