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

GENEVA (11 November 2022) – South Africa’s human rights record will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the fourth time on Wednesday, 16 November 2022 in a meeting that will be webcast live. 

South Africa is one of the States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session taking place from 7 November to 18 November, which marks the beginning of the UPR fourth cycle. South Africa’s first, second and third UPR reviews took place in April 2008, May 2012 and May 2017, respectively. 

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 South Africa on 16 November can be found here.

Location: Room 20, Palais des Nations, Geneva

Time and date: 09.00 – 12.30, Wednesday, 16 November 2022 (Geneva time, GMT +1 hour) 

The UPR is a unique process which 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 thrice within the first, second and third UPR cycles.  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, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country. 

The delegation of South Africa will be led by Mr John Jeffery, Deputy Minister, Department of Justice and Constitutional Development.

The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of South Africa are: Libya, Qatar and Armenia.

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 South Africa will be posted on the UPR Extranet.

The UPR Working Group is scheduled to adopt the recommendations made to South Africa at 16.00 on 18 November.  The State under review may wish to express its positions on recommendations posed to it during their review.

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: https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/upr/upr-main

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