Brazil embarks on second cycle of UN Universal Periodic Review

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is an innovative mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) that, in 2012, will embark on its second cycle. This mechanism determines that all the 193 UN Member States must periodically submit to a peer review of their human rights situations.

 

Brazil was first reviewed under the mechanism in 2008, when it received 15 recommendations on a number of issues. The country will once again come under the scrutiny of the UPR in May 2012, although the preparatory process began in November 2011.

 

To begin with, civil society participates directly by submitting documentation to the United Nations on the human rights situation in Brazil. The UN then compiles this information into a summary that will serve as one of the main documents for the review and it will also guide the recommendations made by other States to Brazil.

 

In addition to the document containing information submitted by civil society, the UPR is also based on a summary of information produced by various different UN bodies on the country and an official report prepared by the government under review.

 

For Brazil’s second passage through the UPR process, Conectas submitted to the UN, in partnership with another seven organizations working in the field of human rights, a contribution with information on human rights violations in places of deprivation of liberty. The document reveals violations of access to justice, precarious detention conditions and torture in the Brazilian prison system, among other things.

 

Conectas and its partner organizations also submitted a document on Brazil’s obligations concerning human rights violations committed by companies (in Spanish). This document identifies, among other issues, the impacts of the activities of the extractivist industry on human rights in Brazil and the violations committed by Brazilian companies abroad. Finally, Conectas also participated in the submission of three joint documents on the rights of persons with disabilities, the right to health and access to HIV/AIDS medicine and the third on human rights and reproductive health in Brazil.

 

The preparation of the official report to be delivered by the Brazilian government is also now underway. A preliminary version of the document is available for public consultation online. Furthermore, a public hearing was held in the Brazilian Senate on December 14 that was attended by the Minister of Human Rights, Maria do Rosário Nunes, and the Head of the Department of Human Rights and Social Issues at the Ministry of Foreign Relations, Ambassador Glaucia Gauch, as well as representatives of civil society. 

 

The hearing was an opportunity to present the preliminary version of the government’s report to senators and Brazilian society. The Brazilian Human Rights and Foreign Policy Committee, on which Conectas serves as Executive Secretary, also participated in the hearing in Brasília and was one of the organizations to give a presentation at the event.