The UN’s ongoing delay of Myanmar’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) has undermined international scrutiny of the country’s human rights record. Myanmar’s third UPR was never completed in 2021 following the coup, and the fourth, originally scheduled for January 2025 but pushed to January 2027, is now also in jeopardy.
The clearest sign of this renewed delay is the quiet suspension of the civil society submission process. Without public explanation, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has added a small footnote to its UPR website stating that contributions to Myanmar’s fourth UPR “will not be received until further notice.” This restriction applies only to Myanmar.
Civil society submissions had been due by 17 July 2026, a deadline that would have given the UN six months to prepare for the January 2027 review. With the submission process now frozen, that 2027 date is once again at serious risk.
The UPR was created to ensure “universal coverage and equal treatment of all States.” Yet at the very moment when people in Myanmar face widespread and systematic human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, the UN’s main peer-to-peer human rights review mechanism has been effectively frozen.
This paralysis is a grave failure of the international human rights system. UN bureaucratic complexities must not become a shield that allows an illegal military junta to avoid international scrutiny.
A bureaucratic root cause
The immediate trigger for these delays is a prolonged dispute over who represents Myanmar at the UN.
After the illegal military coup of 1 February 2021, both the military regime and the National Unity Government (NUG) claimed Myanmar’s UN seat. In December 2021, the UN General Assembly Credentials Committee decided to defer its decision on who should represent Myanmar.
The military regime should not represent the State of Myanmar even after the recent sham “elections”. The military seized power in a violent, unconstitutional coup and is waging a campaign of terror against the civilian population. However, rejecting the regime’s credentials must not mean stopping the entire UPR process.
Uncertainty over representation may have been the main reason for failing to adopt the outcome report of Myanmar’s third UPR and for repeatedly delaying its fourth-cycle review.
The danger of suspending scrutiny
The UPR is unique in the UN system. States themselves publicly record what is happening in a country and issue formal recommendations for change.
By allowing administrative delays linked to illegal regime change to halt this process, the UN risks continuing a dangerous precedent. If lack of an accepted State representative is enough to stop a review, any rogue regime can use a credentials dispute to neutralise the UN’s main human rights monitoring mechanism.
The fundamental rights of the people of Myanmar cannot be suspended while the UN credentials committee in New York debates representation. The “universal” nature of the UPR means that Myanmar’s human rights obligations remain in force, regardless of who occupies the UN seat in Geneva.
A rights-based call to action
Legitimising a murderous military regime and abandoning human rights monitoring are not the only possible options to end the delay.
The UN should adopt a procedural workaround to move ahead with Myanmar’s UPR. A modified, OHCHR-led process could invite all key stakeholders, including States, civil society, the NUG, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar to present evidence, document abuses, and place findings on the official record. The military regime should also be invited as a stakeholder but not as a State.
UN Member States must also be able to issue formal recommendations to Myanmar, preserving the UPR’s core function. Even if there is no recognised State representative present to accept or reject these recommendations, it is essential that the international community clearly states, and records, what steps are required to restore human rights and accountability.
The UN should also reinstate and publicise a deadline for civil society and stakeholder submissions, even if the UPR is delayed, hosting them on the UN website, similar to all other countries. These submissions are valuable in fully documenting, processing, and formally recognising them within the UN system.
The UN must ensure that internal credentialing disputes do not paralyse human rights mechanisms in situations of mass atrocity.