The Universal Periodic Review and Muslim States' Engagement

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) has been hailed as an innovative mechanism of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The peer review mechanism evaluates the human rights record of all 193 Member States and provides recommendations to further the global promotion and protection of human rights. This paper assesses the mechanism, currently in its third cycle, in the context of Muslim states. It considers the extent of these states’ commitment to the process and argues for a need to move away from mere lip-service to the mechanism and engage in meaningful discourse to achieve the objectives of the UPR