Dec 21, 2010
UPR Symposium: Irish Civil Society Engagement
Human Rights in Ireland is delighted to welcome this contribution from Mary O’ Shea, the UN Universal Periodic Review Coordinator based in the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is coordinating a civil society contribution to Ireland’s first assessment under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council, scheduled to take place in October 2011. The UPR is innovative in that it is a co-operative mechanism. Indeed, constructive engagement between government, national human rights institutions and civil society is one of the key benefits to emerge from the UPR process over the past four years. If Ireland is to have a quality, participatory and inclusive UPR process, it is imperative that civil society play an active role and fully engage in the process.
To this end, sixteen Irish civil society organisations have come together to coordinate an effective civil society response as part of a UPR Civil Society Cross Sectoral Steering Group. The aim of the Steering Group is to consult with groups and organisations around the country and feed the outcomes of these consultations into a Stakeholder Summary Report with the overall objective being to get as many organisations as possible to contribute and sign up to the Report. Experience shows that the recommendations of civil society carry more weight if we work together. By collectively contributing to the Stakeholder Summary Report, we ensure that civil society voice is heard loud and clear.
The UPR recommendations offer unprecedented advocacy opportunities at the national level. The result of the UPR examination will be a list of recommendations, made by other countries, on how to improve the human rights situation in Ireland and are solid building blocks upon which to base our work for change in Irish law, policy and practice. Civil Society as a whole can use the recommendations to call for changes in Irish law or policy where current practice is in not in line with the recommendations.
The deadline for civil society organisations & the Irish Human Rights Commission to submit their respective reports to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is 21st March 2011. The steering group will be rolling out a series of activities to raise awareness of the UPR process and facilitate input from civil society to the UPR examination in January 2011. If you would like more information on the ICCL’s work on the UPR process or would like to contribute to the coordinated civil society report, please contact Mary O’Shea on mary.oshea@iccl.ie or on 01 799 4556. You can also consult ICCL’s dedicated website by clicking here.
