International Human Rights and the International Human Rights System A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions All States that wish to speak in the interactive dialogue may do so and the time for each speaker is determined on that basis.112 If there is sufficient time, a member State may speak for three minutes and an observer State for two minutes. However, if the speakers’ list is so long that the time available (140 minutes) would expire before all speakers have been heard, then the speaking time will be shortened, first to give each speaker two minutes and then, if that is still insufficient to enable all States that wish to speak to do so, to allocate the available time (140 minutes) equally among all those on the speakers’ list.113 “A status” NHRIs can attend the UPR Working Group but they are not permitted to speak. Nonetheless, their attendance itself can be significant. They are able to speak with State delegations to raise issues relevant to the State under review. They can arrange parallel events that enable them to brief State delegations on their views and analysis of the human rights performance of the State under review. They can advocate for recommendations that States can make in the Working Group. 5.3. The UPR report and its recommendations The UPR Working Group prepares a report of the interactive dialogue that is forwarded to the HRC for consideration and adoption in a plenary meeting at a future regular session of the HRC. A draft of the report is prepared by the troika for the particular State under review with the full involvement of the State under review and the assistance of the secretariat (OHCHR).114 The draft is discussed for 30 minutes in the Working Group and adopted and referred to the HRC. The Working Group report on each State under review includes: • a summary of the proceedings • conclusions • recommendations made by individual States in the interactive dialogue • voluntary commitments made by the State under review.115 To date, the reports on States under review have basically summarized the interactive dialogue. They contain the views of the State under review and of each State that spoke. The Working Group does not attempt to form its own collective conclusions but the report incorporates the individual views of individual States or groups of States. The Working Group does not debate the recommendations made by individual States and it does not adopt its own recommendations. Accordingly, the report simply includes all the recommendations put forward by individual States on that basis, neither endorsing nor rejecting any of them. The fact that the Working Group does not consider and vote on each recommendation has resulted in many more recommendations being included in the report – generally well over 100 and sometimes over 200 – and they are usually far stronger than the Working Group would be prepared to endorse. To avoid them being scattered randomly throughout the report, recommendations “should be clustered thematically with the full involvement and consent of the State under review and the States that made the recommendations”.116 112 This was not the case in the first cycle when speaking times were fixed and the number of States able to speak was limited by the length of the session. 113 HRC Decision 17/119; paras. 5–7. 114 HRC Presidential Statement 8/1; para. 9. 115 HRC Resolution 5/1; Part I.E.; para. 26. 116 HRC Resolution 16/21; para. 15. 42 | Chapter 6: Universal Periodic Review