Universal Periodic Review (UPR)

The UK takes part in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). This is a peer review process conducted by the UN Human Rights Council to assess the human rights situation in every UN Member State.

The UPR assesses how states are putting human rights into practice, looking at their human rights obligations as set out in:

the UN Charter
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
the international human rights treaties each state has signed up to
voluntary commitments, such as national human rights policies
relevant international humanitarian law (which regulates the conduct of war)

How the UK is doing

Under the UPR, the human rights situation of every UN Member State (including the UK) is reviewed every five years. We have a page dedicated to the UPR on our human rights tracker. There you can find information about the different stages in the monitoring and review cycle and see where the UK currently is in this process. The UPR page shows you the timeline for the current cycle. It also shows where to find out about previous cycles and how to participate in future cycles.

Our assessment pages on the human rights tracker provide an overview of the UK and Welsh governments’ progress in meeting their international human rights obligations.

Human rights tracker

Search our human rights tracker to find all UN recommendations to the UK under the UPR and the UN treaties. You can also see our assessments of the UK and Welsh governments’ progress in implementing them.

Watch our video on how to use the tracker (you can also watch this video in Welsh).

Our work on UPR

The most recent work we have produced as part of our UPR monitoring includes:

Our latest report to the UN Human Rights Council sets out what has been done to protect human rights in Great Britain since our last report in 2017
a joint statement marking the mid-point of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and a short briefing paper as a mid-term update (September 2019)
a letter to the Ministry of Justice, asking the Government how it would implement the UPR recommendations (December 2017)

Last updated: 19 Jul 2023