Simone Dietrich1, Simon Hug2 3  4  , Gino Pauselli5

First version: September 2025, this version: Oct 19, 2025
Paper proposed for presentation at the  
18th Conference on the "Political Economy of International Organizations"
(IE University, Segovia, January 29-31, 2026)

Conflict-related sexual violence and the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council

Conflict-related sexual violence and the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council 6

Abstract

The regular peer review of the human rights records of all member states of the United Nations (UN) has been touted as one of the main innovations that came with the creation of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) replacing the decried UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). While some studies have highlighted that a large share of recommendations made in this Universal Periodic Review (UPR) are accepted by the state under review and subsequently the latter report having addressed them. Hence, while on paper the UPR appears to work like a charm, we know rather little whether the recommendations made by peers in the UPR actually change the situation on the ground. We address this gap by offering a study on how recommendations dealing with sexual violence in the UPR affect the behavior of states under review engaging in conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). Drawing on data for the first three UPR cycles we find mixed evidence for such effects. While for some measures of CRSV we find a reduction, for most of them the negative effects seem to be non-existent. These results, though obtained in a limited policy area of a particular type, question the optimistic assessments regarding improvements in human rights due to the UPR.
1  Département de science politique et relations internationales, Université de Genève, 40 Bd du Pont d'Arve, 1211 Genève 4; Switzerland, phone +41 22 379 83 78, email: simone.dietrich@unige.ch.
2  Département de science politique et relations internationales, Université de Genève, 40 Bd du Pont d'Arve, 1211 Genève 4; Switzerland, phone +41 22 379 83 78, email: simon.hug@unige.ch.
3 CefES research fellow, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca
4 Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva
5University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. E-mail: pauselli@illinois.edu
6Partial funding through the Joint Seed Money Funding Scheme of the University of Geneva and Yonsei University and the research assistance by Léa Meyer, as well as several helpful exchanges with Karin Johansson are greatly appreciated.
15Note that these longer term effects can only be estimated with observations from the first two cycles, as our data on sexual violence from ends in 2021.

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