27/06/2012

11 States fail to uphold their commitment to make two recommendations or less per SuR

In March 2012, a couple of months prior to the start of the second cycle of the UPR, 39 States committed to make only two recommendations to each State under Review (SuR) during this second cycle, with Algeria notably reminding the Human Rights Council that according to Resolution 5/1, "the UPR process should not be overly burdensome". However, during the UPR's 13th session, held from 21 May to 4 June, 11 of these 39 States actually failed to uphold their commitment and made more than two recommendations to at least one or more States under Review. These 11 States consisted of: Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Ireland, Japan, Maldives, the Republic of Moldova, Netherlands, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and Thailand.

A total of 2111 recommendations were made in 954 statements during the 13th session. The average number of recommendations made by recommending States to each State under Review was 2.2. Thus, the actual number of recommendations made by the 119 States is similar to the commitment taken by the 39 States. These 11 States have therefore not only failed to uphold their commitment but they have also made, with respect to some SuR, more recommendations than States which had not made that commitment.

The remaining 28 States which maintained their commitment were: Algeria, Andorra, Bahrain, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Colombia, the Republic of Congo, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Honduras, Indonesia, Libya, Monaco, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom.