Our Stakeholder report to Cameroon’s Universal Periodic Review, led by Dr Amna Nazir, makes specific recommendations to the government regarding the right to life and capital punishment.
Researchers
Consultancy background
This Stakeholder Report focuses upon capital punishment and makes recommendations to the Government of Cameroon on this key issue, implementation of which would also see Cameroon moving towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 16 which aims for peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice for all and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
On 24 August 2023, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published its Stakeholder Summary Report for Cameroon, which cited the Stakeholder Report submitted by UPR Project at BCU:
“The UPR Project at BCU, Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, Birmingham City University recommended to Cameroon to formalise its de facto moratorium on death penalty, with a view to abolition, within the next three years, and affirm its commitment to SDG 16 on access to justice through its support at the next biennial vote on the UNGA Resolution on the moratorium on the use of the death penalty.” (Para 21)
The outcome of the review was published on 11 January 2024 in the Report of the Working Group. The following relevant recommendations were made to Cameroon:
Consider the ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty. Recommending state: Chile (35.4); Malta (35.55); Australia (35.56); Paraguay (35.57); Spain (35.58); Switzerland (35.59); Cyprus, Estonia, France, Madagascar, Mexico, Slovenia & Ukraine (35.60); Finland (35.63); Italy (35.62); Latvia (35.63)
Abolish the death penalty. Recommending state: Costa Rica & Iceland (35.53); Liechtenstein (35.54)
These Member State recommendations are consistent with the categories of recommendations identified in the UPR Project at BCU’s Stakeholder Report for Cameroon’s UPR.
About the UPR Project at BCU
The Centre for Human Rights (CHR) has been engaging with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) since 2016. Under the auspice of the Human Rights Council, the UPR is an intergovernmental process providing a review of the human rights record of all Member States.
Through the UPR Project at BCU, the CHR we engage with the UPR through taking part in the UPR Pre-sessions, providing capacity building for UPR stakeholders and National Human Rights Institutions, and the filing of stakeholder reports in selected sessions. The UPR Project is designed to help meet the challenges facing the safeguarding of human rights around the world, and to help ensure that UPR recommendations are translated into domestic legal change in member state parliaments.
We fully support the UPR ethos of encouraging the sharing of best practice globally to protect everyone's human rights. The UPR Project at BCU engages with the UPR regularly as a stakeholder, having submitted numerous reports and been cited by the OHCHR.