Our Stakeholder report to South Sudan’s Universal Periodic Review, led by Dr. Amna Nazir, makes specific recommendations to the government regarding the right to life and capital punishment.
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Consultancy background
This Stakeholder Report focuses upon capital punishment and recommends that South Sudan ratifies the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and safeguards the right to life.
We make recommendations to the Government of South Sudan on this key issue, implementation of which would also see Sudan moving towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 16 which aims for peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice for all and effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
Download the stakeholder report
On 1st November 2021, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights published its Stakeholder Summary Report for the South Sudan, which cited the Stakeholder Report submitted by UPR Project at BCU:
“Various stakeholders recommended that South Sudan ratify the ICESCR, OPICESCR, ICCPR, ICCPR-OP, ICCPR-OP, CRPD, ICCPED, Interstate communication procedure under the ICCPED, OP-CRC-IC, ICERD, and ICRMW”. (Para 2)
“BCU noted that the 2011 Transitional Constitution provided for the death penalty, and although Article 21 restricted application to “extremely serious offences”, it failed to define “extremely serious”. (Para 20)
“BCU recommended developing a comprehensive action plan to work towards a moratorium, with a view to abolition, and amending the 2011 Transitional Constitution to prohibit the death penalty”. (Para 21)
Following the citations in the Stakeholder Summary Report. The outcome of the review published on 28 March 2022 in the Report of the Working Group stated that South Sudan will examine the Member State recommendations and will provide responses in due time, but no later than the fiftieth session of the Human Rights Council.
The Member States recommendations in the Third Cycle to be examined by South Sudan were:
- Abolish the death penalty and ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Second Optional Protocol (Recommending state; Iceland (113.7); Italy (113.15); Uruguay (113.16).
- Establish a moratorium with a view to abolishing the death penalty (Recommending states: Germany (113.72); Lithuania (113.73); Mexico (113.74); Portugal (113.75); Slovenia (113.76); Spain (113.77); Switzerland (113.78); Ukraine (113.79), Albania (113.80), Argentina (113.81); Costa Rica (113.83); Chad (113.84); Brazil (113.85).
- Consider establishing a formal moratorium on the death penalty (Recommending state: Chile (113.82).
- Take effective steps to abolish the death penalty (Recommending state: Liechtenstein (113.86).
- Take the necessary measures to reform the judicial system and ensure its independence in order to end impunity and enhance access to justice (Recommending state: Libya (113.114).
These Member State recommendations are consistent with the categories of recommendations identified in the UPR Project at BCU’s Stakeholder Report for Sudan’s UPR.
About The UPR Project at BCU
The Centre for Human Rights has been engaging with the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) since 2016. Under the auspice of the Human Rights Council, the UPR is an intergovernmental process providing a review of the human rights record of all Member States. Through the UPR Project at BCU, the CHR engages with the mechanism through taking part in the UPR Pre-sessions, providing capacity building for UPR stakeholders and National Human Rights Institutions, and the filing of stakeholder reports in selected sessions.
The Pre-sessions are organised by the NGO, UPRinfo, which brings together UN Permanent Missions, national human rights institutions, and civil society organisations to discuss the key human rights issues in the member states to be considered in the UPR. It seeks to identify stakeholder needs within individual member states, in order to help ensure that stakeholder issues and the claimed human rights violations are adequately reported to the Pre-session to help inform the UPR in the Human Rights Council. The UPR Project has engaged in numerous countries’ Pre-sessions, including Sudan and Namibia, having discussions with government delegations and civil society organisations across the world, and impacting upon recommendations made at the UPR.
In September 2019, the UPR Project at BCU submitted its first stakeholder report to the USA’s UPR. Since then, we have submitted reports to the UPRs of multiple countries, including Myanmar, Namibia, Eswatini, Sudan, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, South Sudan, and the Syrian Arab Republic. Our reports are frequently cited by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.