Partners

• Austrian civil society

Description

The Austrian League for Human Rights organises the coordination of a joint statement by Austrian civil society to the UN Human Rights Council in the framework of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The league supports the networking of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and invites umbrella organisations from diverse areas of human rights to participate in the UPR. Over 20 umbrella organisations with well over 250 sub-organisations were involved in the latest UPR process in order to give the widest possible range of NGOs the opportunity to suggest improvements in their fields of expertise, to make demands and to highlight positive developments. The league coordinates with the network of human rights coordinators of the federal ministries in terms of structured dialogue for the country report to the Human Rights Council in the framework of the UPR and regarding the implementation of the recommendations. This is considered a promising practice of cooperation between government administration and civil society for human rights monitoring.

For a long time, it has been difficult to track whether the recommendations of the Human Rights Council are being implemented by the Austrian government. For this reason, the league developed the UPR tool. The UPR tool reflects the global recommendations to Austria from the UPR process at the UN Human Rights Council and shows the current implementation status. The UPR tool also details the status of the recommendations (accepted or acknowledged), progress in the implementation of these recommendations, the responsible actors at the federal level and specialised NGOs. Moreover, the league comments on the progress in the implementation of these recommendations. The mandate of the league furthermore encompasses education, training and awareness raising on human rights (also targeting parliamentary bodies and government administration).