NHRCK Written Contribution For the 28th UPR Working Group Session for the review of the human rights situation in the ROK Implementation in general 1. The ROK is one of the highly supportive States that has been very cooperative with HRC and UPR process: it had been a member of HRC from 2008 through 2013 and has also taken the current membership until 2018, and served as the President of HRC for the 10th cycle in 2016. 2. Nevertheless, the ROK Government (Government) has not shown fully sufficient efforts to implement the UPR recommendations (Recommendations) such as accession to the human rights treaties (Treaties), withdrawal of its reservations to some Treaties and relevant institutional improvements. As seen in the Thematic List of Recommendations (Annex), in spite of the Government’s numerous policy efforts to implement the Recommendations, some of them did not have a significantly practical effect. In particular, with regard to necessary cooperation with civil society organizations and the NHRCK, which was stressed in Recommendation 124.15, the adopted mechanism was limited in that it simply concerned a one-off process of opinion collection, rather than a permanent monitoring system to cover the overall implementation progress of the Recommendations. 3. It is a positive development that the Government incorporated the Recommendations from the 2nd cycle to revise the 2nd (2012-2016) National Action Plan on Human Rights (NAP). However, the NAP itself has not been fully implemented and, despite the NHRCK’s recommendation for the establishment of the 3rd NAP (2017-2021), the Government has just held one session of public hearing which was partly open to the public and has not established the 3rd NAP yet. Furthermore, as the authority responsible for the UPR and the NAP is the Ministry of Justice,which is just one of the government ministries, it has some limitations in playing a pivotal role in the work of promoting the UPR process and implementing the NAP. 4. In the meantime, the NHRCK Act was revised in February 2016 to insert new provisions on the immunitiesand qualifications of Commission members and strengthen the selection process of Commission members by providing for the guarantee of transparency and diversity in the process. These revisions meant progress towards NHRCK’s independence. 5. Recommendation: Ensure that the Recommendations be always incorporated into the NAP and that the Prime Minister’s Office or other corresponding state body play as a control tower for more effective implementation of the UPR and the NAP. Make institutional improvements to substantially enhance the Government’s cooperation with the NHRCK and civil society organizations 1 / 12