Overturn decision to close UN rights office, Rights Watch urges Government

In a statement dated February, 15^th 2023, Oryem Nyeko, a Ugandan researcher at the Human Rights Watch said shutting down the UN human rights office is a move intended to stifle those working to promote respect for human rights in Uganda, and removes a critical voice from the human rights ecosystem.

 He said the Human Rights Watch has since written to the Foreign Affairs ministry permanent secretary Vincent Bagiire with questions about the Government’s position on the UN rights office but Bagiire referred them to the ministry’s earlier communication on the matter.

On February 6th, 2023, Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Ministry informed the OHCHR Uganda country office that it would not renew its agreement to host the UN entity beyond its current three-year term ending in February 2023.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), a department of the United Nations Secretariat, is mandated to promote and protect the enjoyment and full realisation, by all people, of all rights established in the Charter of the United Nations and in international human rights laws and treaties.

The mandate includes preventing human rights violations, securing respect for all human rights, promoting international cooperation to protect human rights and streamlining the United Nations system in the field of human rights.

The Office was established in Kampala in 2006, with the initial mandate focused on the human rights situation in the conflict-affected areas of Northern and North-Eastern Uganda. However, it was renewed in 2009 and expanded to cover the entire country and all human rights issues.

In February 2020, the mandate for the Office was further expanded to include the establishment of a Regional Human Rights Training Centre in Uganda; to provide training activities on the international human rights system for Government officials of interested States in the region, as well as national human rights institutions and civil society organisations.