Universal Periodic Review Working Group – 40th Session

Universal Periodic Review of Iceland

Statement by Australia

25 January 2022

Thank you [President /Vice-President],

Australia commends Iceland’s strong human rights record, including the government’s robust regulatory mechanisms to identify and punish officials who commit human rights abuses. Australia commends Iceland’s ongoing and consistent efforts to protect human rights, particularly its impressive record as a global leader on reducing gender inequality, and ongoing actions to implement previous Universal Periodic Review recommendations.

Australia welcomes Iceland’s planned progress to expand anti-discrimination laws, including increasing the scope of the current acts on Equal Treatment irrespective of Racial and Ethnic Origin and Equal Treatment in the Labour Market. Australia also welcomes the new Government’s commitment to establishing a ‘new Human Rights Agency’.

Australia recommends that Iceland:

1. Establish a National Human Rights Institution in compliance with the Paris Principles.
2. Ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD-OP).
3. Adequately fund all actions for combating human trafficking and issue a comprehensive action plan including awareness raising, prevention, and measures to address the structural conditions which enable and perpetuate human trafficking.

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