Nepal Human Rights Council discusses Universal Periodic Review
At the end of January 2011, the tenth session of the working group Universal Periodic Review (UPR) took place in Geneva. The UPR reviews the extent to which each UN member complies with the UN Human Rights treaties once every four years. One of the countries that were reviewed during the tenth session was Nepal. In Nepal, human rights defenders (HRDs) – including human rights lawyers – are regularly hindered in their struggle for human rights. In the context of the UPR, several international organizations drew attention to the position of HRDs in Nepal.
On 25 January 2011, volunteer Marnix de Planque of L4L’s Nepal monitoring group attended the plenary session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) where the results of the UPR were discussed. During this session, several UN members (including the US, France, Norway and the Czech Republic) recommended Nepal to improve the position of HRDs. According to the concept final report, Nepal has vowed to take concrete measures to improve the safety of HRDs in Nepal.