Our Stakeholder report to the Syrian Arab Republic’s Universal Periodic Review, led by Professor Jon Yorke, makes specific recommendations to the government to abolish the death penalty.
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Consultancy background
In July 2021, the UPR Project at BCU submitted a report to Syria’s third cycle UPR, focusing on capital punishment. We make specific recommendations to the government of Syria calling for the initiation of an official moratorium on the death penalty, as a step towards domestic de jure abolition of the punishment.
Download the stakeholder report
On 1 November 2021, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published its Stakeholder Summary Report for the Syrian Arab Republic, which cited the Stakeholder Report submitted by UPR Project at BCU:
“UPR BCU noted that, in the country, the legal distinction between criminal law offences and the death penalty and military judges applying extra-judicial executions had become blurred. This has produced significant opportunities for the State to abuse the defendants’ rights, as well as has rendered opportunities for the government to deny the right to a fair trial and access to competent legal representation. There is significant evidence revealing that the State has violated defendant’s rights in all of these aspects of the judicial process.” (Para 32)
Following the citations in the Stakeholder Summary Report. The Member States recommendation in the third cycle were consisted with the categories of recommendations identified in the UPR Project at BCU’s Stakeholder Report for Syrian Arab Republic’s UPR.
- Ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, and, until then, establish a moratorium on the application of the death penalty (Recommending states: Spain (133.5); Iceland (133.7); Latvia (133.8); Portugal (133.9).
- Abolish the death penalty (Recommending states: Lithuania (133.103).
- Establish a moratorium on the application of the death penalty, as an interim measure before its abolition (Recommending states: Albania (133.104); Costa Rica (133.105); Fiji (133.106); Romania (133.108); Holy See (133.107).
- Consider establishing a formal moratorium on carrying out capital executions, (Recommending state: Italy (133.66).
About The UPR Project at BCU
The Centre for Human Rights 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 engages with the mechanism 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 Pre-sessions are organised by the NGO, UPRinfo, which brings together UN Permanent Missions, national human rights institutions, and civil society organisations to discuss the key human rights issues in the member states to be considered in the UPR. It seeks to identify stakeholder needs within individual member states, in order to help ensure that stakeholder issues and the claimed human rights violations are adequately reported to the Pre-session to help inform the UPR in the Human Rights Council. The UPR Project has engaged in numerous countries’ Pre-sessions, including Sudan and Namibia, having discussions with government delegations and civil society organisations across the world, and impacting upon recommendations made at the UPR.
In September 2019, the UPR Project at BCU submitted its first stakeholder report to the USA’s UPR. Since then, we have submitted reports to the UPRs of multiple countries, including Myanmar, Namibia, Eswatini, Sudan, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, South Sudan, and the Syrian Arab Republic. Our reports are frequently cited by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.