유엔인권이사회(Human Rights Council)의 새로운 국제인권보호제도인 보편적정기검토(Universal Periodic Review)에 관한 소고

The reform of the UN Commisison on Human Rights came to the fore of the debates revolving around the UN reform. It was argued that, due to politicization and dysfunctioning of the Commission on Human Rights, a credibility deficit has developed, which could cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole. As a result, a strong public demand for the reform of the Commisison on Human Righty by the international human rights community, including governments and non-governmental orgnizations (NGOs) was accepted, which resulted in the creation of the UN Human Rights Council. This new Human Rights Council is different to the former Commission on Human Rights in a number of respects, including the method to elect its members. The Commisison on Human Rights elected its members, based on the recommendations by different regional groups. However, the new Human Rights Council reviews the candidacy of individual member states and elects them by a majority vote in the General Assembly. The Human Rights Council is also different in that it is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly, as compared to the Commission on Human Rights being one of the functional commissions of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). In this regard, the Human Rights Concil enjoys somewhat an elevated status in the UN system. While the Human Rights Council assumes almost all of the exsiting human rights mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights, a new mechansism has been created: Universal Periodic Review. The Human Rights Council shall therefore undertake a universal periodic review, based on objective and reliable information, of the fulfilment by each State of its human rights obligations and commitments in a manner which ensures universality of coverage and equal treatment with respect to all States; the review shall be a cooperative mechanism, based on an interactive dialogue, with the full involvement of the country concerned and with consideration given to its capacity-building needs; such a mechanism shall complement and not duplicate the work of treaty bodies. There are high hopes and expections of this universal periodic review. As such, many governments and civil society organizations believe that the success of the Human Rights Council will depend on the proper functioning of the Universal Periodic Review. The Republic of Korea was reviewed under this new Universal Periodic Review mechanism in May 2008. The objectives of this article are therefore to provide an overview of the legal basis and the modalities of the Universal Periodic Review. It will also present some of the outcomes of the review of the Republic of Korea’s universal periodic review for the purposes of illustrating how this new international human rights protection mechanism is applied in reality.