Canada Statement to the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council November 22, 2006 Preparatory process and conduct of the review Thank you Mr. Facilitator. Preparatory process: Given the objective of the universal periodic review to contribute to an improved implementation of and respect for international human rights obligations and commitments by each UN Member State, the preparatory process should engage each State and the Council in an assessment of its implementation of human rights, including achievements, outstanding challenges, and improvements that could be made, as well as consideration of capacity-building needs. The first step in the preparatory process for the UPR should be a compilation by the OHCHR of a country dossier on each UN Member State, which should be made available on the OHCHR’s website in a user-friendly format by country. The goal should be to make use of existing information already available to the extent possible. This dossier should include the international human rights obligations of each State under the UN Charter, UDHR, and other international human rights instruments, as well as the international commitments undertaken by each State. The country dossier should also include all available information on each State from UN sources, including the human rights treaty bodies, special procedures, the OHCHR, and other parts of the UN system. Additional sources of information should include those that are related to broader development agendas and challenges, which address both development processes and results, and both civil and political as well as economic, social, and cultural rights. These sources would include UN, multilateral, and country documents such as country assessments and national strategies. Thus, in addition to UN human rights sources, it would be useful to include the following types of documents: - UN Common Country Assessments (which are rights-based assessments of the country situation prepared jointly by UN Agencies, with the participation of the country concerned); - UN country programming frameworks and action plans, such as those of the UNDAF (UN Development Assistance Framework) and the UNDP (which draw on country assessments); - OHCHR country field reports; - National poverty reduction strategies and plans; and - Other UN, multilateral and country documents that can contribute to identifying capacity-building needs. In addition, information received from NGOs, local and international, as well as national human rights institutions should be made available. The next step might be the preparation of a summary and assessment of this information by OHCHR, with a view to identifying the recommendations that have been made by the UN system to the State in question, an analysis of achievements and outstanding issues, as well as capacity-building needs and on-going international cooperation efforts. This assessment would be made available as part of the country dossier. The second stage would involve the preparation by each country under-going the review of a brief statement addressing the implementation of human rights within the country, including achievements, difficulties, challenges and plans; issues arising out of the country dossier compiled by the OHCHR, including follow-up to the recommendations from the UN system; and, as need be, how the State intends to address outstanding challenges, as well as capacity-building needs from that country’s perspective. This statement would also be made available as part of the country dossier. Conduct of the review: The UPR, while offering an opportunity for scrutiny and frank dialogue, should be conducted in a constructive and cooperative manner, with a view to assisting States in improving implementation of human rights obligations, standards and commitments. To be effective, the UPR should not be overly cumbersome for the Council, Member States, States subject to review, Observers or the OHCHR. It should not replace nor duplicate existing mechanisms, such as the Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures. Rather, the UPR should complement these other mechanisms by providing an additional means to promote follow-up to recommendations and implementation of human rights. It should bring added value, and capitalize on the information and work of these other mechanisms. The entire process of the UPR should be transparent, with the dialogue and the documentation being public and available electronically. The UPR should thus: Focus on implementation; Build on existing information, rather than require extensive new information or reports by the UN or States; Engage the State under review in an open and interactive dialogue with its peers (i.e. other States), with the participation of the OHCHR, relevant special procedures as necessary, other relevant UN agencies, national human rights institutions, and NGOs; Be carried out at regular and reasonably short intervals; Be mandatory and apply universally in the same manner to all States. In keeping with GA resolution 60/251, every State must be treated equally. Therefore the period for review must be the same for each State. As GA resolution 60/251 requires each Council member to be reviewed during its term of office, which is three years, the period of review for every State should therefore be at most three years. Any longer period would introduce complications and possible inequalities between Council members and observer States. A relatively frequent review would better complement the work of the treaty bodies and special procedures by promoting more regular follow-up to their recommendations. It would also provide more frequent opportunities to assess the capacity-building needs of States. In order to enable every UN Member State to be reviewed once every three years, about 64 States would need to be reviewed each year. In order to distribute this task in a manageable way, we propose the establishment of 4 dedicated UPR committees, each comprising 11 or 12 Council members. Each of these UPR committees would review about 16 countries each year intersessionally. This work could be spread out during the year. If one 3-hour intersessional meeting is allocated to each State, each UPR committee would require about 8 meeting days per year, plus an additional two days to prepare the report to the Council. Each Committee would report to the Council regularly throughout the year, so that at each of its three regular sessions, the Council would consider reports on about 21 countries. The review would include an interactive dialogue in the UPR Committee with the State concerned during at least one 3 hour intersessional meeting. The standard agenda of the dialogue could essentially be as follows: (i) the State being reviewed presents its Statement; (ii) comments, questions and suggestions by UPR Committee members, observers, and other participants; (iii) responses by the State. The discussion would be structured with appropriate time limits for statements or interventions. A Rapporteur, selected from within the UPR Committee for each State reviewed, would prepare a Summary of the interactive dialogue for each State reviewed, which would be submitted to (a) the UPR Committee and (b) the State reviewed. The State reviewed would prepare an official final written response on how it intends to address and take action with respect to the issues raised in the dialogue. The response could take the form of new commitments or pledges. If it so desires, the State may include in its response a request for technical assistance. Each UPR Committee would officially submit to the HRC the Summaries of the interactive dialogues, its conclusions and recommendations if any, as well as the final response of the States under review for consideration and possible follow-up action at its regular sessions.