UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Model UN

Choose the UNHRC if you are ready to research two records: your own country's and that of any country the topic names. Council members are themselves reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review during their term, so the government you criticise can turn the question on yours in the same debate. The procedure is the one you know from the General Assembly.

The General Assembly created the Council in resolution 60/251 to replace the Commission on Human Rights, and the Council answers to the Assembly. It takes up human rights violations, makes recommendations, and through the Universal Periodic Review examines the record of every UN member state.

The Council works under the rules of procedure for General Assembly committees, and so does your committee: one vote per member, no veto. When the real Council voted 32 to 2 in March 2022 to set up a commission of inquiry on Ukraine, Russia, a member at the time, voted against and could not stop it.

Expect topics that name countries. The Council's agenda has a standing item on human rights situations that require its attention (item 4) and a separate one on Palestine and the other occupied Arab territories (item 7), so topics mix rights themes with named states. What you cannot do is give orders. Your draft works through the Council's mandates: ask a special rapporteur to report, extend a mandate, call on a state to cooperate with a commission of inquiry. Sanctions belong to the Security Council.

1. 1

   Start with your own country's record. The country reports of Freedom House, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International show you the framing your critics will use, and the guide to researching your country shows you how to find your government's own statements and votes.

2. 2

   Check if your country sits on the Council this year. The General Assembly's Human Rights Council election page lists the members and the year each term ends. If yours is not a member, it takes part as an observer, which usually means you can speak but not vote; look up observer in the MUN glossary, then check how your conference's rules seat such states.

3. 3

   Use your government's last review as its record. Your country's latest Universal Periodic Review outcome marks every recommendation it received as supported or noted. Cite the ones it supported, have an answer ready for the ones it only noted, and add the special rapporteur's latest report on your theme. When you write the proposals paragraph of your paper with the position paper guide, make them the reports, mandates or inquiries you plan to ask for in committee.

4. 4

   Give every reporting paragraph a deadline. The Council does: resolution 49/1 asked the Ukraine inquiry for an oral update at the 51st session and a written report at the 52nd. Check each paragraph against the five questions of a strong operative paragraph in the resolution guide; one of them asks by when.