22/01/2015

New procedure for publication of draft Working Group reports

As of the 21st UPR Working Group session taking place from 19 to 30 January, the draft UPR Working Group reports will be now distributed in two phases; firstly the recommendations, 48 hours after review, and secondly the summary of the statements, one week after.

Recent cuts in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ budget have forced the UPR Secretariat to reduce its spending, with direct consequences for the publication of draft UPR Working Group reports. In order to devote fewer resources to the drafting of those reports, the time to produce these reports has been extended from 48 hours to one week, with a two-step approach. In a first step, only a comprehensive list of recommendations will be made available online 48 hours after the review. In a second step, the summary of the proceedings, including the presentation of the State under Review and the interactive dialogue, will be distributed one week after the review, at the latest by the Friday following the end of the Working Group session.

For the 21st session, the full draft reports, including both the recommendations and summary of proceedings, will be made available by February, the 6th. Delegations should send their comments on the summary parts by February, the 13th.

The procedure to comment on recommendations and to adopt draft reports remains unchanged.