“The Universal Periodic Review mid-term validation meeting” was held in Ulaanbaatar

The Mongolian human rights record was reviewed during the 2^ndcycle of Universal Periodic Review by the Working Group of Human Rights Coucil of the United Nations in September 2015. The Government of Mongolia has received 150 recommendations out of 156 recommendations given by the UN Human Rights Council. In this regard, the Government of Mongolia has adopted a General Plan to implement these recommendations from 2016 to 2019 by its resolution No.204. Mongolia is planning to submit its mid-term report on implementations of these recommendations to the United Nations Human Rights Council this month.

The National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia has assessed the implementation of these recommendations by developing and including one chapter on the UPR implementation status in its 17^th annual report on "Situation of Human Rights and Freedoms in Mongolia” which was submitted to the Parliament by the end of March 2018. The Commission has provided the Parliament with the following three recommendations in relation to the implementation of the UPR recommendations through its 17^th annual report:

-To create a comprehensive data of implementation status of recommendations provided by the UN Human Rights Council;

-To improve the official translation (from English to Mongolia) of international human rights instruments and to ensure consistency of terminology between national and international human rights laws;

-To identify indicators and benchmarks for assessing the implementation of the General Plan and to discuss a progress of the implementation every year during the Government sessions and to make appropriate decisions to advance the implementation process.

Furthermore, Open Society Forum, Human Rights NGO Forum of Mongolia, National Human Rights Commission, Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have jointly organized a discussion on UPR in four regional provinces of Mongolia in March and April 2018 in order to make a preliminary assessment of human rights situation in these provinces, to raise awareness of the UPR process among the participants of the discussion, and to listen to views and concerns of government organizations, civil society and communities in relation to the human rights issues as well as to exchange information with them.

With support of the UPR-Info international non-government organization, aforementioned stakeholders have organized "The Universal Periodic Review mid-term validation meeting” on 17 May 2018 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. This validation meeting has covered the following presentations: "Best practice of multi-stakeholder cooperation in implementation of UPR”, "Mid-term report of UPR by the Government of Mongolia”, "Mid-term report of UPR jointly prepared by the Human Rights NGOs Forum”, "The role of National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia in implementation of UPR recommendations”.

This one-day validation meeting has conveyed multi-stakeholders including Mr. Gianni Magazzeni, Chief of UPR branch, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr. Hans Fridlund, Programme Manager, UPR-Info, Mr. Byambadorj Jamsran, Chief Commissioner, National Human Rights Commission of Mongolia, Mr. Enkhbayar B., Deputy Minister of Justice and Home Affairs, Ms. Urantsooj G., Chair of Advisory Board of Open Society Forum and representatives from government and non-government organizations.