Nigeria’s human rights record to be examined by Universal Periodic Review

Nigeria’s human rights record to be examined by Universal Periodic Review

By: Michael Mike

The human rights record of Nigeria will be examined by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the fourth time.

The review would be done on Tuesday, 23 January November 2024, in a meeting in Geneva that will be webcast live.

According to a statement on Thursday by the UN Human Rights Council, Nigeria is one of 14 countries to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session from 22 January to 2 February 2024. The first, second and third UPR reviews of Nigeria took place in February 2009, October 2013, and November 2018, respectively.
 
The statement revealed that the UPR Working Group is comprised of the 47 Member States of the Human Rights Council. However, each of the 193 UN Member States can participate in a country review.
 
It stated that the documents on which the reviews are based are: 1) national report – information provided by the State under review; 2) information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; 3) information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations, and civil society groups.
 
The UPR is a peer review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN Member States have been reviewed thrice. During the fourth UPR cycle, States are again expected to spell out steps they have taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews which they committed to follow up on and highlight recent human rights developments in the country.
 
The delegation of Nigeria would be led by her Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar,
 
The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of the Nigeria are Chile, Gambia and Malaysia.
 
According to the statement, the webcast of the session will be at Live Schedule | UN Web TV and the list of speakers and all available statements to be delivered during the review of Nigeria will be posted on the UPR Extranet.
 
The statement added that the UPR Working Group is scheduled to adopt the recommendations made to the Nigeria on Friday, 26 January 2024. The State under review may wish to express its positions on recommendations posed to it during its review.

Nigeria’s human rights record to be examined by Universal Periodic Review