Lithuania offers human rights recommendations to Slovenia and Bosnia and Herzegovina
On 12 and 13 November, the Permanent Representative of Lithuania Ambassador Andrius Krivas took the floor at the 34th session of the Working Group of Universal Periodic Review to address the human rights situation in Slovenia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Lithuania welcomed the significant achievements of Slovenia in human rights and recommended Slovenia to ratify the International Convention for Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and to strengthen efforts in raising public awareness of the need to eliminate hate speech and intolerance.
Positively acknowledging the progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina in improving its human rights environment, Lithuania recommended Bosnia and Herzegovina to guarantee full equality of all constituent peoples at all political and administrative levels, to strengthen the independence and expertise of the judiciary system in order to ensure the enforcement of international standards in the prosecution of war crimes, to protect the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression and create safe environment for civil society, human rights defenders, and journalists.
The Universal Periodic Review is a human rights mechanism employed since 2008. The UPR assesses the human rights situation in each individual country and provides recommendations for improvements. At the end of each UPR cycle, UN Members produce reports about the implementation of the adopted recommendations and overall progress in the area of human rights. Countries undergo the UPR every five years. Lithuania had its first review in 2011. In 2017, its second-cycle UPR report got adopted.
