The Rights Practice

›Home ›News ›About Us ›Programmes ›Resources ›Get Involved ›Sharing Our Experience ›Contact Us

The Report on the Universal Periodic Review and Chinese Civil Society is now availalble

Download here (report in Chinese)

What is the Universal Periodic Review?

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a review taken by the UN of the human rights record of all UN member states once every four years. Although NGOs can contribute to the process, in China only one independent human rights organization (an Aids NGO) contributed to the last review in February 2009. Just a few Chinese civil society organizations, most sanctioned by the State, took part.

A UPR Wuhan conference in October 2009 was aimed at preparing a core group of key Chinese civil society leaders to better contribute to the next UPR process. It is hoped they can monitor the situation and report back to the Chinese public and international community about China's progress.

Those at the conference said more should be done to spread the word about the UPR process and improve access to information - particularly in Chinese - and information from official sources. Some said access was needed to China’s state party reports in advance of their submission to the UN. There was also mention of the limitations of UN websites for non-English speakers.

More Information:
OHCHR UPR

News > 'All on same road, but different part of journey'

"There were real issues being talked about; I really felt I could have been anywhere. The issues were often the same, just on a different level."

Those were the words of Lynn Carvill, who works to improve women's rights in Northern Ireland, speaking during her first trip to China.

Her visit to the country in October 2009 was to take part in a human rights conference in Wuhan, a city in Hubei province around 1000km south of Beijing.

Lynn Carvill, a women's rights worker from Belfast, during an October 2009 conference in China
(photo by PIDLI)

"We are all on a journey, and we are nowhere near the end of that journey, even in the UK. China is just at a different point,” added Ms Carvill, a Belfast-based lobbyist with the Women’s Resource and Development Agency (WRDA).

The main aim of the event was to help Chinese NGOs improve their ability to hold the Chinese government to account for the human rights situation in China, in relation to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).(see sidebar)

Around 30 Chinese participants from Chinese NGOs and university-based law and human rights centres took part. They represented organisations for children, migrant workers, people with Aids, the disabled and drug addicts.

Katy Swaine, a British solicitor working for the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE), also flew from the UK to Wuhan to share her experiences and learn more about human rights in China.

Ms Swaine said she found the level of candour a pleasant surprise.

"When I told my father about the trip, he asked me if they let people have conferences about human rights in China? A friend in Hong Kong said maybe you should not criticise China; that was her instinct. But there were free discussions."

But Ms Swaine added: "There is a very real risk of horrible things happening to people in China if a certain line is passed. Some NGOs have closed down and some people have been detained; this must affect how they plan their work. That is something we do not have to deal with in the UK; there is generally no personal risk if you are involved in this line of work.

"I was very impressed by the commitment of people working in the sector, they are very courageous. It is important to have these gatherings partly as a morale boost and way of showing solidarity."

Katy Swaine , a British solicitor, during an October 2009 conference in China
(photo by PIDLI)

Ms Swaine told of a Chinese woman at the event who works for an organisation trying to reduce the number of HIV cases. "They were trying to organise a case about the blood transfusion situation in Henan (where tens of thousands of peasants became infected with HIV after selling their blood). They want to challenge the authorities for negligence, but the government has banned all claims from there in relation to HIV. So they might try to get it heard in another province that does not have this ban."

The conference was organized by The Rights Practice (TRP), a British human rights education NGO, and the Public Interest and Development Law Institute of Wuhan (PIDLI). The British Foreign Office paid for the event.

The two British experts also noticed some of the key problems facing Chinese NGOs.

Ms Carvill said: "Rural women in rural NGOs feel very isolated as the power centre is in Beijing. There are also clear gaps between the large NGOs and the smaller ones. The immense size of China really struck me."

Communication between NGOs was very difficult, said Ms Swaine. "In the UK there are formal alliances so you can feed information in from the grassroots into the middle, but here it is not possible to make such a formal alliance. Perhaps they could have an informal network of emails?”"

Participation in the UPR process did not have to take a lot of time, added Ms Carvill. "Write a couple of pages and just send them in. The UN would take them seriously. It would be so powerful for these people just to have their issues brought to attention. Just write it down and send it, although there is more credibility if more organisations come together."

Both women hoped they could do more to help the human rights sector in China.

Ms Swaine said, "There are a lot of people I will be in touch with; it was heartening to meet people doing the same job as me on the other side of the world."

Ms Carvill thought learning from China's experiences would become increasingly important. "I imagine we can already learn some things from them; for example, conference participants were from academic and NGO backgrounds, a very useful combination of practical work backed up by robust evidence, which is not always evident in the UK." (Helen Leavey)