About this Event
This Equality and Human Rights Commission-funded project is delivered by the UPR Project at Birmingham City University.
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a process which all United Nations (UN) member states participate in every four-and-a-half years. This is a holistic assessment of states' human rights performances. On the 10th November 2022, the United Kingdom underwent its fourth UPR.
On the 9th December 2022, the UPR Project at BCU will be hosting an in-person conference, hosted at the state-of-the-art STEAMhouse facility in Birmingham, aimed at bringing CSOs together to maximise their engagment and impact in the UPR process. The sessions will develop CSOs' capacity; provide opportunities for networking and collaboration; and provide a clear direction for CSOs' engagement following the UK's fourth UPR.
The proposed agenda for the day is as follows:
(A) De-brief of the state recommendations to the UK during the review;
(B) Conference-wide discussion on the value of the recommendations and likely impact;
(C) Break-out rooms for thematic discussions;
(D) Planning for next steps; and,
(E) Drafting of ‘Conference Statement’ to be published on the UPR Project website.
Throughout the conference, there will be speakers sharing their expertise on the UPR and discussing the value of CSO engagement. These include:
- Prof. Jon Yorke, Director of BCU's Centre for Human Rights,
- Dr Alice Storey, Senior Lecturer at BCU and lead of the UPR Project,
- Mr Michael Lane, PhD Researcher at BCU examining the UK's engagement with the UPR,
- The Equality and Human Rights Commission,
- UPR Info, the Geneva-based organisation focused on human rights promotion through the UPR.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided on-site.
A small amount of funds will be made available to accomodate travel to Birmingham for this event. If you wish to make use of these funds, please e-mail [email protected].
About the UPR Project at BCU:
The has been engaging with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) since 2016. Under the auspice of the Human Rights Council, the UPR is an intergovernmental process providing a review of the human rights record of all Member States. Through the UPR Project at BCU, the CHR engages with the mechanism through taking part in the UPR Pre-sessions, providing capacity building for UPR stakeholders and National Human Rights Institutions, and the filing of stakeholder reports in selected sessions.
The Pre-sessions are organised by the NGO, UPRinfo, which brings together UN Permanent Missions, national human rights institutions, and civil society organisations to discuss the key human rights issues in the member states to be considered in the UPR. It seeks to identify stakeholder needs within individual member states, in order to help ensure that stakeholder issues and the claimed human rights violations are adequately reported to the Pre-session to help inform the UPR in the Human Rights Council. The UPR Project has engaged in numerous countries’ Pre-sessions, including Sudan, Namibia, and the United Kingdom, having discussions with government delegations and civil society organisations across the world, and impacting upon recommendations made at the UPR.
In September 2019, the UPR Project at BCU submitted its first stakeholder report to the USA’s UPR. Since then, we have submitted reports to the UPRs of multiple countries, including Myanmar, Namibia, Eswatini, Sudan, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, South Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the United Kingdom. Our reports are frequently cited by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. You can read these reports and information about reports here: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/law/research/centre-for-human-rights/consultancy/upr-project-at-bcu.
The UPR Project is led by
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
STEAMhouse, Birmingham, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00