The international human rights architecture is composed of a range of different mechanisms with varying mandates, procedures and activities. Their observations and recommendations serve to inform political and legal action to improve human rights protection.
The UHRI contains the work of the following mechanisms:
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a peer-review mechanism of UN Member States under the auspices of the Human Rights Council.
The human rights Treaty Bodies are committees of independent experts whose mandate emanates from the nine core international human rights treaties and one optional protocol.
The special procedures of the Human Rights Council are independent human rights experts with thematic and country-specific mandates.
Please note that the UHRI currently only contains observations and recommendations from country visit reports of the thematic Special Procedure mandates.
Other investigative mechanisms have been established by the Security Council, the Human Rights Council, the General Assembly and the Secretary-General or the High Commissioner for Human Rights.