UNDP in Ukraine

Kyiv - Almost 40 representatives of human rights organizations from Ukraine gathered in Kyiv to negotiate a common stance and devise a plan of actions to prepare for and participate in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Ukraine in October 2012. Being a new UN instrument, one of UPR objectives is to review the progress the country demonstrates in the area of human rights.

Created by the General Assembly (GA) in June 2006 (Resolution 60/250), the Human Rights Council (HRC), consisting of 47 members, is the GA’s supportive body and an international forum for human rights issues. The activity of the Council is called to prevent human rights violations, to react quickly to human rights emergencies in countries, and develop international human rights law. Universal Periodic Review is the main mechanism of the Human Rights Council.

 

 

Among other things UPR’s main objectives is the promotion and protection of human rights, cooperation with HRC and other human right protection bodies, as well as with the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR), information and good practices exchange between the countries and other stakeholders.

 

Every country undergoes the Universal Periodic Review once per every four years. At the end of October 2012 Ukraine will be reviewed for the second time (the first UPR for Ukraine took place in in 2008) by other UN member-states to assess the situation with human rights in the country.

Civil society has an opportunity to contribute to Ukraine’s review by providing to UN factual information on human rights situation in the field. UPR to this end may be used to identify the drawbacks with human rights in the country.

 

According to Ms. Valeria Lutkovska, Government Representative on European Court of Human Rights matters, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, which has been tasked to prepare and present the Country Report for the UPR, is open for cooperation with civil society. Moreover, by the end of January the Ministry will have commenced wide consultations with the civil society institutes and other stakeholders to prepare and collect the materials to be included to the Country Report.

 

Conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme within the framework of the Civil Society Development Programme this seminar is a first event of its kind to be followed by subsequent initiatives in the two forthcoming months to promote the information about, develop methodology, and learn the requirements for the preparation of the Stakeholders Report for the UPR, which should be submitted to the OHCHR no later than 26 March 2012.

Further obligations, occasioned by the coordination of attempts to prepare the Stakeholder Report, are assumed by the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Right Group, which unites over 30 human rights organizations in Ukraine. According to the UPR requirements, the submission by the group (or coalition) of organization should not exceed 10 pages while individual submission should not be over 5 pages.

 

According to Mr. Vrej Atabekian, Human Rights Officer of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva), UPR is an important political process for countries as they get reviewed by their peers. Therefore, UPR may be used as a platform to raise public awareness of human rights, while the list of recommendation prepared by other UN member-states will identify areas for improvement of human rights in Ukraine.

 

A short UPR Guide in Ukrainian and OHCHR presentation on UPR in Russian may be downloaded from the enclosed files.

 

For More information please contact Vasyl Romanyuk, Communications Expert of the UNDP Civil Society Development Programme at Vasyl.Romanyuk@undp.org.ua , (044) 584-34-71 or Maryna Hovorukhina, PR Specialist of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Group at gov-marina@helsinki.org.ua, (044) 417-41-18.