Doha, Qatar: The Human Rights Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI) held a seminar in commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Wednesday, December 6, 2023.
The seminar was organized in cooperation with the National Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Office for Human Rights Documentation and Training for South-West Asia and the Arab Region under the title “The Universal Periodic Review as a mechanism to promoting Human Rights”.
The title comes as Qatar is going through the fourth cycle of the universal periodic review in October 2024 which will assess and examine Qatar’s compliance with the International Bill of Human Rights, International Conventions, and the International Humanitarian Law over the last four years.
The seminar highlighted the distinct roles of various stakeholders in the periodic review process, with particular emphasis on Qatar's experience.
The seminar hosted a number of representatives of the United Nations Centre for Human Rights Training and Documentation, the National Human Rights Commission, public institutions in Qatar, in addition to representatives of non-governmental organizations to discuss the various contributions of each actor to the universal periodic review process and review comparative experiences from other Arab States' audits.
Dr. Moataz El Fegiry, Head of the Human Rights Program at the DI, moderated the inaugural session, in which valuable discussions were given by Dr. Bassell Salloukh, Associate Dean and Head of the Politics and International Relations Program at the DI, Nasser Al Marri, Director of Legal Affairs at the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC), and Dr Abeer AlKhraisha, Director of UN Human Rights Training and Documentation office for South-West Asia and the Arab Region.
These opening remarks focused on the importance of promoting the culture of human rights as the best means to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure a decent life for everybody with coexistence among all.
The first session started with Dr. Eshraq Elzein, Human Rights Officer and Coordinator of the Education and Training Unit of the United Nations Training and Documentation Centre, by reviewing the role of the United Nations Training and Documentation Centre in the universal periodic review mechanism and highlighting its role in building the capacity of the State institutions under review with regard to mechanisms for the preparation of the official report in accordance with the United Nations guidelines. The session was moderated by Yazeed Amro, student from the Human Rights Program at the DI.
The second session, moderated by Dr. Ghanim Al-Najjar, Professor of Political Sciences at Kuwait University, was about "The role of national human rights institutions in the universal periodic review process".
Dr. Abdullah Mohammed Al-Kaabi, Legal Adviser at the National Human Rights Commission, spoke in detail about this role, focusing on the experience of the National Human Rights Commission of Qatar.
The third and final session was moderated by Dr. Aya Randall, Assistant Professor at the Human Rights Program, and discussed the role of non-governmental organizations in the universal periodic review process. Both Dr. Amro Majdi, Human Rights Watch's senior researcher, and Fadel Abdulgani, Chair of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, highlighted the experiences of rights organizations in writing shadow reports to respond to the State's report, providing oral interventions and organizing side events on the margins of the universal periodic review.
