Malaysia's Human Rights Performance: Assessment of its First Session of Universal Periodic Review in the United Nations Human Rights Council

Since its inception, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) has been subjected to a substantial amount of criticism. The mechanism began functioning in 2008, however little has been made known about the roles and functions of the UPR. This article explicitly examines the first UPR process of Malaysia in 2009, in order to illustrate how the mechanism operates in practice by highlighting the engagement of Malaysia government with the stakeholders, the follow-up process and the main issues concerned. This article argues that in spite of the excellent diplomacy skills that were portrayed by the Malaysian government in the UPR session, the human rights situation in the country has not improved much. This paper seeks to determine how effective the UPR has been at encouraging human rights reforms nationally by analyzing and assessing the implementation actions of the Malaysian government in response to their accepted UPR recommendations.