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DEFENDERS
4
Au t umn&wi n t e r
2 0 1 4 & 2 0 1 5
A Review of the Second UPR
Report on Iran
October 2014
Introduction
In 2007, the Human Rights Council
which had replaced the Commission on
Human Rights a year ago, approved a
comprehensive process for the review
of the human rights situation of all UN
member states, called the Universal
Periodic Review. According to this
procedure, all member states had to
provide answers for the human rights
situation in their countries every four
years, to three monitoring groups, i.e.
other states, UN bodies and also civil
society institutions. These governments
would receive recommendations for the
improvement of their human rights.
Following the end of the first round of
the UPR by 2012, all UN member states
(192 at the time) an overall review took
place of this procedure, and on that basis
it was decided that the reviews should
take place more calmly and accurate than
the first round. That is why the number of
countries under review in each working
group’s session was reduced from 16 to
14, and the review sessions time was
increased from 3 to four hours. On this
basis unlike the first round of the UPR
where countries were reviewed once
every four years, now they would have
to wait four and a half years.
As a supporter of the UPR process,
the government of the Islamic Republic
of Iran played a key role in all sessions
and believing the necessity for universal
review and not selective review of
human rights, showed good cooperation
with the Human Rights Council. On
this basis the first round of the UPR on
Iran’s human rights situation took place
in 2010 at the Human Rights Council. It
must be said that one of the reasons for
By Dr. Mahmoudreza
Golshanpazhooh
Member of ODVV board
of directos