RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will face third cycle of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on November 13, 2017, said Christine Chung, Human Rights Officer at the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights in Geneva.

As part of the 3rd cycle of the UPR, Pakistan has submitted its report that will be part of the review on November 13. Pakistan went through the UPR in 2008 and 2012.

Talking to the parliamentarians, government, media and civil society representatives and university students, Chung said that the UPR is a unique inter-governmental mechanism of the Human Rights Council aimed at improving the human rights situation in the 193 United Nations member states. Under this mechanism, the human rights situation of all UN member states is reviewed every 4.5 years. Pakistan is among the 42 member states, which are being reviewed in 2017 during three working group sessions.

Chung shared information on how the civil society and lay people can contribute to the reviews of the universal periodic review and other treaty bodies and also to the implementation of the related recommendations.

Chung emphasized that these different sets of recommendations are complementary and implementing them or making the changes that they call for means there is a lot of hard work ahead. The UPR does not end with this interactive dialogue in Geneva.

Babar Nawaz Khan, Chairman National Standing Committee on Human Rights said that the UPR is an excellent opportunity for Pakistan to review and improve the human rights situation with the help of international community.

Victory Cammarota, Director UN Information Centre said that access and right to information is a fundamental human right.

The briefing provided an exceptional opportunity to the Pakistani people to have a direct interaction with an expert from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and learn about the core international human rights treaties and as to how the government, civil society and other stakeholders can contribute in improving the human rights standards.

Tahira Abdullah, a development worker and human rights defender said that the civil society organisations and human rights defenders are playing a proactive and vibrant role in the promotion of human rights, for instance through submitting shadow/alternate reports on the UPR and human rights conventions, to which Pakistan is a state party.

The UPR is a state-driven process under the auspices of the Human Rights Council, which provides the opportunity for each state to declare what actions they have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and fulfill their human rights obligations.

As one of the main features of the council, the UPR is designed to ensure equal treatment for every country when their human rights situations are assessed. The UPR was created through the UN General Assembly on March 15, 2006 by Resolution 60/251, which established the Human Rights Council itself. It is a cooperative process which, by October 2011, has of this kind exists. The UPR is one of the key elements of the council, which reminds the states of their responsibilities to fully respect and implement all human rights and fundamental freedoms. The ultimate aim of this mechanism is to improve the human rights situations in all countries and review the human rights records of all 193 UN member states. Currently, no other universal mechanism addresses human rights violations wherever they occur.