The recent HRUG-Talk, Looking
Behind the papers
is now online.
The presentation by Shenfei Zhou, PhD candidate at the Human Rights Centre of Central South University. She recently completed an internship at the UN OHCHR Regional Office for Europe.
looked at the following:
A series of recent setbacks, including State withdrawals from international organisations and resistance to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Human Rights Council, suggest that UN human rights mechanisms, or the United Nations more broadly, are facing increasing resource constraints and political pressure. In an uncertain future, it is worth asking how these human rights “bureaucracies” that were established in pursuit of the universalisation of human rights, actually operate in practice and respond to moments of crisis. This discussion will start from examples drawn from work experience at the UN OHCHR Regional Office for Europe, using an insider perspective to reflect on the field-level work of human rights mechanisms, and then draw on a research agenda to discuss how human rights mechanisms may (or may not), realise the “universal” aspirations of human rights.
The Slides for the Presentation are available here.