THE HUMAN rights record of St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), will be examined by the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group for the third time on Wednesday, November 3 2021, in a meeting that will be webcast live.

According to a release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, SVG is one of the 14 States to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its upcoming session taking place from 1 to 12 November.

This country’s first and second UPR reviews took place in May 2011 and May 2016, respectively.

The documents on which the reviews are based are: 1) national report – information provided by the State under review; 2) information contained in the reports of independent human rights experts and groups, known as the Special Procedures, human rights treaty bodies, and other UN entities; 3) information provided by other stakeholders including national human rights institutions, regional organizations and civil society groups.

The three reports serving as the basis for the review of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines can be found here.

The UPR is a unique process which involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States.

Since its first meeting was held in April 2008, all 193 UN member States have been reviewed twice within the first and second UPR cycles. During the third UPR cycle, States are again expected to spell out steps they have taken to implement recommendations posed during their previous reviews which they committed to follow-up on, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country.

This country’s delegation will be led by Keisal M. Peters, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

The three country representatives serving as rapporteurs (“troika”) for the review of SVG are: Malawi, the Plurinational State of Bolivia and Pakistan.

The webcast of the session will be at https:// webtv.un.org.