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

GENEVA (20 January 2022) – Iceland’s human rights record will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the third time on Tuesday, 25 January, in a meeting that will be webcast live. 

Iceland is one of the States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session from 24 January to 3 February*, which marks the end of the UPR third cycle. Iceland’s first and second UPR reviews took place in October 2011 and October 2016. 

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 three reports serving as the basis for the review of Iceland on 25 January can be found here.

Location: Palais des Nations, Geneva [NB: Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting will be held using a combination of in-person and remote participation, and media representatives are encouraged to follow the proceedings on webcast.]

Time and date: 9:00-12:30, Tuesday, 25 January (Geneva time, GMT +1 hour) 

The UPR is a unique process that involves a periodic 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 twice within the first and second UPR cycles. During the third 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. 

Ms. Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister, will lead the delegation of Iceland.

The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of Iceland are Senegal, Argentina and Finland.

The webcast of the session will be at http://webtv.un.org

The list of speakers and all available statements to be delivered during the review of Iceland will be posted on the UPR Extranet.

The UPR Working Group is scheduled to adopt the recommendations made to Iceland at 15.00 on 28 January. The State under review may wish to express its positions on recommendations posed to it during its review.

*The UPR 40th session was initially scheduled to be held in November 2021, although it was postponed due to COVID-19 measures.  

ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact Rolando Gómez, HRC Media Officer, at rolando.gomez@un.org, Matthew Brown, HRC Public Information Officer, at matthew.brown@un.org, or Pascal Sim, HRC Public Information Officer, at simp@un.org

To learn more about the Universal Periodic Review, visit: www.ohchr.org/hrc/upr 

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