Civil society organisations: The UK must live up to its position as global human rights ambassador

Civil society organisations, including Inclusion London, the British Institute of Human Rights, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the Runnymede Trust, and Just Fair, have come together to express disappointment at the Government’s decision to accept fewer than half of recommendations received to improve the UK’s human rights record.

Infographic reading: United Kingdom. #UPR #HumanRights. The Universal Periodic Review monitors the human rights situations in all United Nations member states and makes recommendations for progress. The UK Government accepts 42% of the 2017 UPR recommendations. There were 10 recommendations about safeguarding the Human Rights Act and our domestic human rights protections. Logos: Human Rights Check Uk and The British Institute of Human Rights.

Civil society organisations, including Inclusion London, the British Institute of Human Rights, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the Runnymede Trust, and Just Fair, have come together to express disappointment at the Government’s decision to accept fewer than half of recommendations received to improve the UK’s human rights record.

Last May the UK received 227 recommendations from other countries as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which assesses how well a country is respecting international human rights standards. The report on the UK was adopted on 21st September. Recommendations ranged from doing more to safeguard the rights of children, tackling high levels of poverty, reforming the criminal justice system and ensuring that women and girls are fully protected from violence.

However, the UK Government only accepted 42% of the recommendations. The average number of recommendations accepted by countries in the region where the UK is located, WEOG (Western European and others UN Group), is 67%.

Just like us, world leaders are worried about the regressive climate for human rights in our country. Ten countries expressed particular concerns about the perennial threat to repeal the Human Rights Act. Others asked the Government to ensure that leaving the European Union will not result in lower human rights standards in the UK.

Civil society organisations have written to the Government calling on it to look again at the rejected recommendations with a view to accepting many more; proactively engage with civil society both in the implementation of recommendations and the monitoring of progress, which should be publicly reported in two years from now. This would demonstrate definitively that our country is the ambassador for human rights that both the Government, and we, want it to be.

You can view the letter sent to the ministry of Justice and signed by around 60 organisation here.

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