Stop the rollback: scale up UN human rights

Never have we had such a need for a robust multilateral system. One that can enable the resolution of conflicts through negotiation rather than force, one that can address the global challenges that transcend national borders and one where big, medium and small States alike have an equal voice under the one-country-one-vote principle. But the world is reorganising around great-power competition outside UN rules. Meanwhile, rights-averse States continue to grow in influence and seek to impose a distorted vision of multilateralism stripped of meaningful human rights scrutiny and civil society participation. States committed to human rights, from all regions, must work together to resist this trend and defend principled human rights multilateralism.

♦ States should formalise and join a cross-regional coalition to defend human rights multilateralism. 

♦ States should participate and engage meaningfully in all reviews, dialogues and debates concerning human rights at the UN, and ensure follow-up to recommendations and implementation of their obligations. 

♦ States should support and join the High Commissioner’s Global Alliance and make meaningful commitments and pledges in that regard.

♦ States should mobilise support for the independence and work of the International Criminal Court, and oppose sanctions against ICC officials and withdrawals from the Rome Statute.

♦ States should oppose and refrain from the use of the veto in the Security Council in situations involving atrocity crimes, and support Security Council reform efforts.

Human rights cannot be a pillar of the UN in name while being denied the resources needed to deliver its mandates. Human rights mechanisms offer among the best returns on investment in the UN system: relatively modest costs for major structural changes. Yet, the UN’s human rights pillar remains chronically underfunded, accounting for only about 5-7% of the UN’s regular budget and less than 1% of the UN’s total expenditure (regular budget plus voluntary contributions by States). 

A range of States have long worked to defund the UN’s human rights work. In recent years, a liquidity crisis fuelled by the late or non-payments of dues by Member States (especially the US and China), and harsh cuts to human rights budgets and posts under the UN80 Initiative  have severely undermined the ability of human rights mechanisms to fulfill their mandates, brief the international community, protect victims, assist States, and investigate abuses. 

Increased political and financial investment in human rights safeguards international peace and security, promotes inclusive and sustainable development for all, and has a vital preventive function, helping to avert severe humanitarian crises. States and UN bodies must secure adequate, predictable, increased and sustainable funding for the UN human rights pillar.

♦ States must pay their assessed contributions to the UN regular budget in full and on time, in line with their legal obligation under the UN Charter. The UN should strengthen accountability for persistent non-payment of assessed contributions, including through the effective application of existing consequences under the UN Charter and consideration of further measures to deter chronic non-payment. 

♦ States should increase their investment in human rights and, in particular, the UN human rights pillar. Wherever possible, they should increase their unearmarked and voluntary contributions to the UN Human Rights Office and the investigative and accountability mechanisms it supports. 

♦ States should mobilise cross-regionally to increase regular budget funding and core capacity for the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) and independent human rights mechanisms and bodies to ensure they can fully discharge their mandates. In any ongoing or future reform, efficiency or cost-saving effort, States should protect the budget for the UN human rights pillar from disproportionate or indiscriminate overall UN budget and spending cuts. 

♦ States should reform the UN’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) to ensure it is more transparent and accountable, including by adopting public working methods, a code of conduct and a code of ethics, holding open and transparent elections, and introducing rules on the non-accumulation of posts for ACABQ members.

Safe, meaningful and inclusive civil society access and participation are essential to ensure that the UN human rights system remains relevant and responsive to local needs and realities. Civil society perspectives ensure that the UN’s action and recommendations are community-informed and can be effectively  implemented at the local, national and regional levels. 

However, barriers to safe and meaningful participation are increasing. These include intimidation and reprisals for cooperating with the UN, visa denials, obstacles to NGO accreditation at the UN’s NGO Committee, the abandonment of hybrid modalities for participation in UN meetings, as well as budgetary constraints, funding cuts, and rising travel costs. These challenges unfold against a broader context of shrinking civic space and democratic backsliding across all regions. If left unaddressed, such obstacles risk undermining the credibility, inclusiveness, and effectiveness of UN human rights mechanisms. The UN and its Member States must protect and expand civil society space within the organisation.

♦ States should reform the ECOSOC NGO Committee to ensure that accreditation processes become fair, transparent, non-politicised, non-discriminatory and efficient. The NGO Committee must also end the practice of unduly stalling accreditation applications, sometimes indefinitely.

♦ The General Assembly should create a mandate for permanent hybrid modalities for the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms, as well as the Treaty Bodies, enabling the UN Office in Geneva and the OHCHR to provide all stakeholders with meaningful opportunities to  participate remotely. States should also adopt a UN-wide approach, ensuring that hybrid modalities for participation are integral to its work, including in other multilateral fora, such as environmental spaces, the Commission on the Status of Women and the NGO Committee, among others.

♦ The UN Secretariat and Member States should work to expand physical access for accredited NGOs at all UN premises. The ban on civil society during the UN General Assembly’s high-level segment should be ended. Civil society should enjoy comparable opportunities for access and participation across UN duty stations, including appropriate access to informal negotiations.

♦ OHCHR should maintain a regularly updated, publicly accessible database of reprisals cases brought to the attention of the UN Senior Official on reprisals. This database would bring greater visibility to cases and enable efficient and effective follow-up by the UN, States and NGOs. The database should include State responses and follow-up action by UN bodies. The Senior Official should also carry out effective and consistent follow-up on all documented cases until they are resolved, including through public diplomacy. 

♦ As part of the Treaty Body strengthening process, the UN and States should strengthen accessibility to Treaty Bodies. The Secretariat should develop necessary tools for digitalisation, ensure that they are accessible to persons with disabilities, including a joint submission platform and case management system for individual communications, as well as a joint submission and document management platform for reporting by State parties. Where doing so is safe, efficient and enhances access and participation for civil society, Treaty Bodies should consider conducting clusters of State party reviews in their regions, thereby contributing to accessibility and efficiency for States, as well as national and regional-level civil society.

The prevention and investigation of human rights violations are essential to the maintenance of peace and security. The Human Rights Council (HRC) is the UN’s top multilateral human rights body, and has a critical role to play in preventing and responding to human rights violations wherever they occur and whoever the perpetrator. 

Yet, selectivity and double standards in responses to grave violations—including in Gaza, Xinjiang, Sudan, and elsewhere—undermine the international human rights system and allow geopolitical interests to determine when and where scrutiny is applied. The selective implementation of legal obligations and recommendations by UN bodies, experts and international courts has eroded the integrity of international human rights law, the credibility of UN mechanisms, and the confidence of human rights defenders and victims in the system. 

The UN must strengthen existing mechanisms and develop new tools to enable earlier, more consistent and impartial action based on objective human rights criteria. 

♦ The HRC should mandate an independent, cross-regional working group of experts empowered to refer urgent situations of gross and systematic violations to the HRC, applying objective criteria in a principled and consistent way. This would ensure that the HRC is seized of urgent issues on their merits, and can consider appropriate action in a principled and impartial manner. 

♦ Pursuant to article 96(2) of the UN Charter, the General Assembly should authorise the HRC to request advisory opinions from the International Court of Justice on legal questions arising in relation to human rights. This would help ensure the principled and consistent development, interpretation and application of international human rights law. It would also contribute to efficiency by promoting greater coherence in the law and providing authoritative guidance on legal matters which may otherwise be subject to different approaches by different mandates and mechanisms.

♦ The General Assembly should authorise the HRC to bring to the attention of the UN Security Council of human rights matters that may impact on international peace and security, thereby contributing to greater prevention, as well as enhanced coordination and efficiency between mechanisms.

♦ The High Commissioner should provide regular intersessional briefings to the HRC on situations that merit the HRC’s attention. Consistently with the HRC’s resolution on the prevention of human rights violations, OHCHR and the newly-established Human Rights Group should also work to ensure a UN-wide response to early warning signals of human rights crises from national and global civil society, national human rights institutions, UN human rights bodies and UN country offices.

♦ Member States should ensure that every country, without exception, is reviewed by the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). By the end of each UPR cycle, no State should be left out of review. If a country refuses to cooperate, its review and adoption should proceed in absentia, on the basis of UN and civil society information.

To be fully responsive to rights-holders’ needs, human rights mechanisms must work in a consistent, transparent and predictable way. This is especially important for groups with less access to or familiarity with human rights mechanisms and their processes. 

Human rights mechanisms are diverse and fulfil distinctive functions. This diversity and complementarity along with their independence have allowed the UN human rights pillar to succeed. States should protect these qualities so that the system remains credible, reliable and responsive, and victims and human rights defenders can continue to engage with it confidently. 

♦ States should ensure transparent, participatory and merit-based nomination and appointment procedures for UN human rights experts, including for the Treaty Bodies and the Special Procedures. This includes appointing members who meet the highest standards of commitment to human rights, competence, expertise, and independence, with due regard to gender parity, diversity and equitable geographic representation. 

♦ During HRC elections, States should vote only for candidates who uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights and who cooperate fully with the UN. All UN regional groups should nominate more candidates than the number of seats available to ensure elections are competitive, incentivise candidates to improve their cooperation with the HRC and its bodies and mechanisms and their national record, and contribute to a better outcome for the HRC’s membership.

♦ States and the UN Secretariat should respect and protect the independence of the Treaty Bodies, Special Procedures, the HRC investigative mechanisms and the ICC, and oppose sanctions, threats and other forms of intimidation or reprisal against them. Once appointed, mandate holders must remain free from political pressure and interference seeking to hinder their independence or effectiveness. 

♦ States should ensure that reform processes, such as the review of mandates within the UN80 Initiative, the standardisation of Special Procedures’ working methods or the Treaty Bodies strengthening process, are informed by meaningful consultation with independent civil society and affected communities. These processes should be based on human rights criteria and preceded by an assessment of their implications for the independence and effectiveness of the mandates. 

♦ In the context of the Treaty Body strengthening process, the Secretary-General should put in place a fixed calendar for Treaty Body reviews to provide clarity to all stakeholders and enable predictable, forward looking allocation of resources. Proposed programme budgets should include resources necessary to implement the calendar fully, together with  all other mandated Treaty Body activities.