Between learning and schooling: the politics of human rights monitoring at the Universal Periodic Review

Abstract

This article explores the politics of monitoring at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a new United Nations human rights monitoring mechanism which aims to promote a universal approach and equal treatment when reviewing each country's human rights situation. To what extent are these laudable aims realised, and realisable, given entrenched representations of the West and the Rest as well as geopolitical and economic inequalities both historically and in the present? Based on ethnographic fieldwork at the UN in 2010-2011, the final year of the UPR's first cycle, we explore how these aims were both pursued and subverted, paying attention to two distinct ways of talking about the UPR: first, as a learning culture in which UN member states 'share best practice' and engage in constructive criticism, and second, as an exam which UN member states face as students with vastly differing attitudes and competencies. Accounts and experiences of diplomats from states that are not placed in the 'good students' category offer valuable insights into the inherent contradictions of dehistoricised and decontextualised approaches to human rights.

Freedom of research and the right to science

“…Experts and groups can also make statements at the regular session of the Human Rights Council, when the outcome of the state reviews is considered. Although the UPR is still looking for a precise identity (Cowan and Billaud 2015), the potential for advancing the human rights agenda is substantial. In fact, the UPR intends to provide technical assistance to states and enhance their capacity to effectively deal with human rights challenges.…”

A horizontal pathway to impact? An assessment of the Universal Periodic Review at 10

“…In an anthropological study of the UPR in 2010-2011, Cowan and Billaud (2015) analyzed words, gestures and practices of states, and observed a dynamic of "learning and schooling" between them. They call states like the ones listed in Table 5.1 "the struggling students" and they mention that for most of the Pacific island states, "both because of 'lack of capacity' in their small bureaucracy and of the high costs of travel, the first and only UPR review they attended was their own" (Cowan andBillaud 2015, p. 1182). Lucy Richardson (2016), former member of the New Zealand Permanent Mission to the UN, highlighted how cumbersome it is for the delegations of small islands in the Pacific to participate in the UPR.…”

“…Probably the most relevant are the "UPR Voluntary Fund for Financial and Technical Assistance" established in 2007 in HRC Resolution 6/17 33 (with a special focus on the implementation of recommendations) and the "Voluntary Technical Assistance Trust Fund to Support the Participation of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the work of the Human Rights Council" established in 2012 in accordance with HRC Resolution 19/26 (with a focus on participation). 34 Despite the institutional attempts to help "struggling states", Cowan and Billaud (2015) find that for many of them, the inability to engage in the UPR was compounded by language issues -mastery of English is mandatory de facto and missing the everyday action in Geneva makes it almost impossible for diplomats to become familiar with the technicalities of 'UN language'. This brings us back to the idea of dialogue.…”

“…On the part of the reviewer state, there is room for empathy, solidarity, condescension, or reprisal, for example. Cowan and Billaud (2015) describe "the common practice -endemic in the first cyclein which certain states 'lined up to praise their friends' … using most or all of the available time to offer what were judged as 'easy' or 'friendly' recommendations, thus crowding out more critical statements about, or recommendations addressing, a state's deficiencies and/or misdeeds" (Cowan andBillaud 2015, pp. 1180-1).…”

Studying Human Rights in the Middle East: Lingua Franca of Global Politics or Forked Tongue of Donors?

“…More specifically, one might ask about the institutional, organizational, and bureaucratic structures and political actor networks shaping the work of human rights lobbyists at the UN in Geneva and New York, for example. 8 There are also few studies of specific human rights organizations, and especially few focused on the Middle East. 9 Questions inspired by Science and Technology Studies (STS) about knowledge production could be used to explore how, in the midst of the chaos of war or revolution in Syria or Cairo, for instance, certain human rights nongovernmental organizations become the go-to sources of credible information for journalists, legislators, and others.…”