Human Rights and Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique process through which human rights situation of 193 UN Member States are reviewed periodically. Through this review, human rights challenges of UN Member States are identified and necessary actions are recommended. Currently, no other universal mechanism of this kind exists. The ultimate aim of the UPR mechanism is to improve the human rights situation in all countries and address human rights violations wherever they occur. UPR is carried out under the auspicious of the UN Human Rights Council. It was created on 15 March 2006 through UN General Assembly which established Human Rights Council that includes 47 member states. In this process, UN Member States review and make recommendations on human rights situation of 193 States once in every four years. UPR supports to increase capacity of States to fulfill human rights obligations. Bangladesh as a State, the National Human Rights Commission, civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-governmental organizations, individually or jointly participated at the 1st cycle of UPR in 2009, 2nd cycle in 2013 and 3rd cycle in 2018. In the 1st cycle, Bangladesh received 42 recommendations, in 2nd cycle 161 and in 3rd cycle 251 recommendations. However, locally social and religious sensitive issues were not supported by the country. NHRC has been involved with this process from the beginning and has been working as a bridge between State and non-State organizations. NHRC reviews the recommendations made by the UPR Working Group of the Human Rights Council (HRC) and advised the government to support maximum UPR recommendations. As a result, Bangladesh remained positive on remarkable number of recommendations of the UPR Working Group of the HRC. We believe, this type of advocacy is an important step towards promoting and protecting human rights of all. In addition, NHRC participated in the pre-session organized by Human Rights and Universal Periodic Review (UPR) | 17