How to Advocate for Children’s Rights in the Climate Crisis through the Universal Periodic Review: A case study from Australia

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a five-yearly peer review process through which UN member states can engage with each other’s human rights records and make recommendations on a wide range of issues through the Human Rights Council. When developing these recommendations, States are strongly influenced by submissions from national human rights institutions and civil society. The UPR mechanism is a significant opportunity for civil society to advocate for implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its related Optional Protocols. This potential has not always been used to push for progress on preventing and remedying the effects of environmental degradation, including climate change, on children and their rights.

This Case Study describes how Save the Children Australia advocated successfully with different States to make recommendations regarding children’s rights in the climate crisis to Australia during its Third Cycle UPR in 2020/2021. This occurred in the context of Save the Children’s broader advocacy for children’s rights and was conducted in close collaboration with other members of an Australian UPR NGO Coalition of around 200 organisations.

This case study is developed as part of the How to Child Rights series.