merrion street

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Defence, Alan Shatter T.D. today (8 March 2012) announced the publication of the Government’s responses to 50 outstanding human rights recommendations made to Ireland last October by UN member states as part of the United Nations (UN) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process. The responses were published as an Addendum to the Report of the Working Group on the UPR, and will be formally adopted at the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council on March 15th 2011.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is one of the major innovations of the UN Human Rights Council (established in 2006), whereby the domestic human rights records of all 192 UN Member States are reviewed every four years. 48 countries are reviewed each year, starting in 2008, with 16 reviews taking place in each of the thrice-yearly UPR Working Group sessions. Ireland’s first review under this process involved submitting a National Report on Ireland’s domestic human rights record in July 2011, and a 3-hour interactive dialogue on 6 October 2011 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. Minister Shatter represented Ireland at the oral review, at which delegations from 49 UN member states made comments and recommendations to Ireland.

Of the 127 recommendations made by member states, Ireland immediately accepted 62, declined to accept 15, and undertook to further examine 50. After careful consideration of these outstanding 50 recommendations by an Interdepartmental Working Group on the UPR, comprising representatives from all relevant Government Departments, Ireland fully and unreservedly accepts 29 recommendations, partially accepts a further 17, and is unable to support 4. The Addendum gives a concise explanation as to our response to each individual recommendation.

The adoption of Ireland’s UPR Report will be streamed live on the UN website at http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/. For more information about the UPR process, and to read the National Report, Report of the Working Group on the UPR and its Addendum, please visit our website, www.upr.ie.