The Human Rights Council and the Universal Periodic Review: A novel method of promoting compliance with human rights

peer reviewedIn 2006, the new Human Rights Council came into being, replacing the Commission on Human Rights. While the Commission undoubtedly achieved a lot in standard-setting, in its last years it had to face allegations of politicization, selectivity and the use of double-standards. The HRC was intended to offer a fresh start to international human rights protection. The objective of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims at giving a brief description of the key flaws of the Commission and the efforts to overcome these deficiencies by the newly established Human Rights Council. The article also endeavours to undertake the analysis required to understand the so-called Universal Periodic Review (UPR) better, a mechanism set up to complement the work done by treaty bodies. In doing so, the achievements as well as the shortcomings will be addressed. Following the analysis of the UPR coverage of Croatia and Hungary, the paper concludes with the summary of the new modalities to be applied in the second cycle of the UPR (2012-2016)