Template for Local UPR City/Community Report

UPR City/Community Report Format

The Universal Periodic Review process encourages people around the world to promote and support human rights analyses of local problems. As part of this process, the UPR Cities Project invites communities to convene discussions of human rights concerns, best practices, and priorities and to consider how international human rights law, treaties and standards apply to local contexts. We ask local groups to submit reports that will be compiled into a national stakeholder or shadow report that we will bring to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Local reports are due by September 15, 2019. Please submit them to: uprcities[at]humanrightscities[dot]mayfirst[dot]org.

For more details on the UPR Cities Project, see: UPR Cities Project

For background on relevant international treaties and reports from previous human rights reviews, see: International Human Rights Instruments

To prepare local reports, please address the following three questions. Please limit your text to no more than 5 pages (1250 words).

1. What are the priority human rights issues/ concerns in your community or region?
   
2. Please provide any examples of human rights advances in your community or best practices that help show how local governments are working to support human rights.
   
3. What specific recommendations for change would help achieve positive change for human rights? Your recommendations may target either local or national governments, or other actors whose actions influence human rights conditions in your community. Please be as specific as possible.
   

When drafting an alternative report, the UN Training Manual recommendations are:

• Identify the focus and structure of your alternative report (e.g., selected issues or all articles/clusters of the treaty)
• Analyse the extent to which existing law, policy and practice comply with the principles and standards of the treaty and other relevant follow-up recommendations, so you can highlight the main challenges in the alternative report
• Make reference to the relevant article in the treaty you are referring to
• Reference all information correctly (e.g., jurisprudence)
• Do not use abusive language
• Be clear and precise, accurate and objective; and provide examples/evidence of alleged human rights violations, where relevant
• Integrate a gender perspective in the alternative report (i.e., mention whether there are any differences between women/men with regard to the enjoyment of specific human rights; include disaggregated data, etc)
• Include concrete suggestions on how could the human rights situation be improve

*The Universal Human Rights Index is a helpful database that allows you to search all the relevant recommendations the UN has already made to the United States in regard to key human rights, such as the right to housing, racial discrimination, migrant rights, etc. Use this tool to link your recommendations to these existing reports.

Local reports are due by September 15, 2019. Please submit them to: uprcities[at]humanrightscities[dot]mayfirst[dot]org.