In the South Pacific Communities second day of the one-week government and non-governmental forum and training on the upcoming review of Palau’s human rights situation will be up for review for the first time in 2011 as part of the United Nations’ a Human Rights Council process called Universal Periodic Review (UPR).
Inputs from the NGO’s, advocacy groups on the human rights issues in Palau are important in assessing the country’s human right situation.
SPC is helping the state and NGO’s come up with human rights report due on Feb. 2011.
The NGO’s report however is separate from the state report` which will entail actions the Palau government have taken to improve the human rights situations in their countries and to fulfill their human rights obligations.
Seema Naidu, Human Rights Officer, SPC/Regional Rights Resource Team said, NGO’s participation is very important because they can send submissions to the Office of the high commissioner of human rights issues before Palau’s review.
Naidu said it is also important that the government invite the NGO to participate in the national consultation when it prepares for the review in 2011.
Naidu said the deadline for submission of information by the civil society is on Nov. 1, 2010.
Naidu said the training’s goal is to help NGOs write reports on the issues it wanted to rise on the country’s human right situation or abuses.
Universal Periodic Review involves a review of the human rights records of all 192 UN Member States once every four years.
