State Human Rights Performance and Recommendations under the Universal Periodic Review

This paper analyzes recommendations made to states under the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in order to determine whether or not the UPR is making meaningful recommendations to states under review. The UPR reviews the human rights of all UN Member States every four years. During the review, each state receives a number of recommendations from other UN member states. This paper uses data from UPR Info to determine if states with better human rights performance as measured by the CIRI human rights data project receive fewer recommendations than states with worse performance. It finds that, even when controlling for other factors, states with worse records on civil and political rights generally receive more recommendations than states with better records. States with lower scores from CIRI on women's economic and political rights receive more recommendations regarding women's issues than states with higher scores. These findings hold regardless of region, suggesting that, at a minimum, the UPR process is identifying violators of human rights.