A/HRC/10/12
page 19
made by the State under review.16 The report of the Council contains not only the summary of
views expressed by the State under review, but also the views expressed on the outcome by
member States and Observers of the Council, and the summary of general comments made by
other relevant stakeholders.
(a)
Analysis of references to human rights defenders
87. References to human rights defenders that were made during the interactive dialogue in the
Working Group session, as well as in questions submitted to the troika in advance, were
generally faithfully reflected in the report of the Working Group and the outcome of the review.
As the outcome of the review mirrors the discussion in the Working Group, and the
recommendations put forward there, the Special Rapporteur observes that in about 30 per cent of
the outcome reports, there was no reference at all to the situation of human rights defenders in
the State under review.
88. For States during whose review references and recommendations were made concerning
human rights defenders, these references and recommendations were generally well reflected in
the outcome document.
(b)
Content of recommendations
89. As mentioned above, the overview of the three UPR sessions shows that the situation of
human rights defenders is not adequately addressed at all stages of the review. References to
defenders were lacking in some instances, even in States where their situation is far from ideal.
And in many cases where recommendations were made, they proved to be rather general in
nature and difficult to apply in practice, both for the Government of the State under review, and
for civil society in general in that country.
90. Since the compilation of United Nations information and the summary of stakeholder
information is not reflected or analysed in the outcome report in any form, the information
contained in them will be lost in the outcome document unless another State participating in the
interactive dialogue decides to refer to them and formulate recommendations with regard to
them.
91. The interactive dialogue proved to be quite useful in drawing attention to the
recommendations of the special procedures, encouraging States to meet their obligations,
inter alia, regarding unimplemented recommendations by mandate holders and outstanding
visit requests.
92. Another issue that needs to be considered is the status of those recommendations that the
State under review decides to reject. While the rejected recommendations are also noted in the
report of the Council, they may pose a problem in cases where the same or similar
recommendations were previously made by treaty bodies or special procedures mandate holders.
16
Ibid, para. 27.
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