Universal Periodic Review 27: Brazil
This UK statement on Brazil was delivered at the adoption of the reports during the 27th Session of the Universal Periodic Review on 21 September 2017.
The Universal Periodic Review takes place at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
The UK thanks Brazil for its continued commitment to the Universal Periodic Review process.
We welcome Brazil’s progress since 2012, including the establishment of the National System to Prevent and CombatTorture, recognition of same sex marriage, adoption of legislation on femicide, establishment of the Truth Commission, and the implementation of custody hearings by some states.
We remain concerned by reports of high levels of police violence, and violence within the prison system, and urge Brazil to strengthen the protection of journalists and human rights defenders.
We welcome Brazil’s acceptance of the recommendation regarding mandatory human rights training for police agencies. We hope that Brazil adopts targets to reduce deaths from police action before the next UPR cycle. We also welcome Brazil’s acceptance of the recommendation to develop a national strategy to tackle modern slavery and increase efforts to protect rural workers and women at risk of trafficking. We look forward to Brazil ratifying the 2014 ILO protocol to the Forced Labour Convention.
We regret that our recommendation regarding the selection of UN treaty body candidates was not supported and hope Brazil will consider demonstrating its open and merit based approach to the selection of national candidates for UN Treaty Bodies’ elections.
We further note that a number of previously supported recommendations from the second cycle, such as the improvement of prison conditions, are yet to be fully implemented and we hope that Brazil will implement all supported recommendations during the fourth cycle.