Our Stakeholder report to Bhutan’s Universal Periodic Review, led by Dr Amna Nazir, makes specific recommendations to the government on the advancement of freedom of religion or belief implementation of which would also see Bhutan moving towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 10 and Goal 16.
Researchers
Consultancy background
In March 2024, the UPR Project at BCU submitted a Stakeholder Report to Bhutan’s fourth UPR cycle, led by Dr Amna Nazir. This submission focuses on freedom of religion or belief. We make recommendations to the Government of Bhutan on this issue, implementation of which would also see Bhutan moving towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 10 which aims to reduce inequalities based on discriminating factors such as religion and Goal 16 which aims for peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice for all and effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels.
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.