10 December 2008 marks the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the first and most far-sighted statement of some of the Commonwealth’s, and the world’s, most basic principles.

From the very inception of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, countries now in the Commonwealth have engaged in shaping and promoting human rights. Those who wrote the Declaration included Commonwealth citizens from several countries including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and India. In 1948 they turned their thoughts to human dignity and the elements needed to make this dignity real.

This publication focuses on the eight core international human rights treaties in force that set out international human rights standards and provide a comprehensive legal framework for states to meet their commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights.

Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a new United Nations human rights mechanism that started in 2008. It will examine the human rights records of all 192 UN member states once every four years. It is an inter-governmental process where countries sitting on the Human Rights Council (HRC) assess the human rights record of each country in turn. This is a new approach, and a departure from the assessments made by the UN human rights treaty bodies, which are made up of independent experts.

As the Chairperson of the Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (CFNHRI), I would like to applaud the significant role that national human rights institutions (NHRIs) play in the promotion and protection of human rights at the national level. NHRIs are national institutions established by governments but independent from them with a mandate to preserve, promote and protect human rights. Different approaches are taken to fulfil this important aim, such as investigating human rights violations, holding governments accountable for their human rights failures and providing human rights training to key state actors.

The country pages summarise information for each Commonwealth member in turn, offering a snapshot for each individual state. These graphs offer an analysis of that information by Commonwealth regions: Africa, Caribbean (including Canada), Europe–Asia and the Pacific.

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

The Human Rights Unit of the Commonwealth Secretariat works to increase awareness of, respect for, and implementation of human rights in the Commonwealth. Declarations by leaders at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting provide the mandate for the strategic framework on which the work of the Secretariat’s Human Rights Unit is based. These declarations have reaffirmed the commitment of governments to the advancement of fundamental human rights as a core political value of the Commonwealth. The initiatives and activities of the Human Rights Unit continue to evolve to meet the needs and concerns of the Commonwealth.