Chinese Government Ignores UN Human Rights Reviews

May 1, 2025 Comments Off

Little progress in socio-economic, women’s rights; ongoing retaliation against rights defenders

(May 1, 2025) In new reports sent to United Nations treaty monitoring bodies, the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) responds to the Chinese government’s rejection of key human rights recommendations made by UN experts. CHRD highlights Beijing’s resistance to genuine cooperation with the UN to improve human rights, and its ongoing threats to human rights defenders trying to engage UN human rights mechanisms.

“The Chinese government refuses to fulfill basic obligations set out under the international human rights treaties it voluntarily joined,” said Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director at CHRD. “At the same time, it harasses, intimidates, and detains human rights defenders from China when they try to work with these bodies.”

Beijing has used the treaty body review process to deflect international scrutiny of its human rights violations. It has obstructed the committees’ engagement with civil society, and failed to implement these experts’ constructive recommendations on improving implementation of the international treaties.

In March and May 2023, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), respectively, issued recommendations to the Chinese government following reviews of its compliance with the relevant treaties. Both committees requested that the Chinese government provide information in two years—in March and May 2025, respectively—detailing its progress on implementing key recommendations. To date, the Chinese government has not submitted information to either committee.

CHRD’s analysis shows that the Chinese government has made no progress toward implementing CESCR’s recommendations. Chinese authorities have not adopted comprehensive anti-discrimination measures in law and practice. Instead, the government permits and exacerbates discrimination against women, rural migrants, persons with disabilities, and LGBTIQ+ individuals. The authorities have not acknowledged human rights violations in the Uyghur region, and they have not abolished the coerced residential (boarding) school system imposed on Tibetan children.

Hong Kong authorities have not implemented CESCR’s recommendation to ensure due process guarantees to human rights defenders (HRDs), civil society actors, journalists, lawyers and others. Instead, they have institutionalized reprisals against those working to defend economic, social and cultural rights in Hong Kong by enacting the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance in March 2024.

CHRD’s assessment of Beijing’s compliance with CEDAW’s recommendations regarding women’s rights shows similar disregard. Although the Chinese government became a state party to CEDAW in 1980, it has yet to fully integrate the treaty’s obligations into its domestic legal system. Chinese authorities have not removed discriminatory legal provisions regarding labor, employment, marriage and divorce, and retirement. They have not created an enabling environment for women human rights defenders (WHRDs). In fact, WHRDs like Xu Qin have been imprisoned and tortured since CEDAW’s review, and recent CHRD research found that prisoners of conscience imprisoned between 2019-2024 were disproportionately women. Hong Kong authorities made no progress implementing CEDAW’s recommendation to revise the legal definition of rape to be in line with international human rights standards.

“While ignoring UN reviews, Beijing is whitewashing its record by hosting high-profile international gatherings on women’s and socio-economic rights,” Richardson said. “Will states attending Beijing’s 2025 Global Summit of Women repeat state propaganda, or will they stand with activists challenging abuses and discrimination?”

As the Chinese and Hong Kong governments seek to control and sanitize information to the UN about human rights violations, CHRD also documented ongoing and persistent cases of reprisals against Chinese and Hong Kong civil society actors for trying to engage with the UN. CHRD filed information in April to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for the UN Secretary-General’s report on reprisals against individuals for engaging with the UN since April 2024.

CHRD’s submission documents new incidents and provides updates about ongoing retaliation against HRDs that demonstrate how Beijing detains, harasses, and surveils defenders for seeking to cooperate with the UN. For the past decade, even as the Chinese government has served several terms as a member of the UN Human Rights Council and therefore been expected to uphold high human rights standards, it has been named every year in the Secretary-General’s reprisals report for its efforts to silence independent civil society’s interaction with the UN system.

Many UN human rights treaty bodies and Special Procedures (independent human rights experts within the UN system) try to hold the Chinese government to the same standards—as set out by international law—as other governments. But the UN Human Rights Council has yet to scrutinize Beijing’s systematic human rights violations, even as allegations of possible crimes against humanity put forward by OHCHR and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention go unaddressed. CHRD urges UN member states to follow the June 2020 recommendations from dozens of Special Procedures to hold a special session on China, and to consider the appointment of a country-specific mandate to investigate human rights abuses in China.

“Beijing shows contempt for the UN human rights system by ignoring reviews and persecuting defenders,” Richardson said. “If the UN system is to work for victims and survivors, and is to hold all states accountable, democracies should pursue the tough measures necessary to investigate Beijing’s violations.”

Contacts

Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, sophierichardson@nchrd.org

Shane Yi, Researcher, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, shaneyi@nchrd.org