19/09/2016

Uncharacteristically low acceptance rates as specific recommendations become the norm

During the 23rd session of the UPR Working Group (November 2015) 2808 recommendations were made and they are now available in our database. With session 23 pushing the number of recommendations received to date at the UPR to 49,392 we are expecting approximately 55000 recommendations by the end of the second cycle of the UPR.

The 14 States under Review were: Australia; Austria; Georgia; Lebanon; Mauritania; Micronesia (Federated States of); Myanmar; Nauru; Nepal; Oman; Rwanda; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; and Sao Tome and Principe. Of the 2808 recommendations they received 61.6% of them were accepted leaving 38.4% noted. 44.8% of session 23 recommendations were specific recommendations (Category 5 in our database). It is worth noting that while the acceptance rate decreased by 12% from session 22, the specificity increased by 5%. Analysis of the recommendations (use our database tools for further number crunching) shows this uncharacteristically low acceptance rate is due to the low rates of acceptance from Australia 51%, Lebanon 54%, Myanmar 46%, and Rwanda 21%.

International Instruments (742), women's rights (510), children's rights (501), torture (243), and detention (199) were the five issues most frequently raised during Session 23. Issues such as racial discrimination, access to justice, labour, and the rights of minorities also attracted a lot of attention from the Recommending States.