United Nations Human Rights Council’s Special Procedures and Review of the Approach of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Situation in Iran

The United Nations commission on human rights (UNCHR) was established as functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations in 1946. During the second phase of its function when it decided to adopt interventionism as its policy in 1967, the commission was faced with major challenge of politicization of human rights consideration and exploitation of its mechanism and procedures by certain countries manifesting itself in non-compliance or violation of the UN human rights guiding criteria such as impartiality, independence, transparency and objectivity. This was met by the growing concern and discontent of international community.The continuity and exacerbation of the said concerns and emergence of their diverse manifestations in recent decades led the United Nations members, particularly the developing countries who were often the target of said exploitation to intensify their endeavours to bring about structural reforms and appropriate substantive changes. This ultimately led to dismantling of the Human Rights Commission and its replacement by the UN Human Rights Council and its progressive procedure of Universal Periodic review (UPR) in 2006. The main objective of the article is the assessment of the scale of compliance or infringement of the Council Special Procedures’ mandate-holders of the aforementioned principles and standards. With descriptive-analytical approach, the article examines the Human Rights Council’s monitoring mechanisms including country situation rapporteurs, and in particular the conduct of the Special Rapporteurs on human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The findings of the present research, indicates that, despite certain reforms and improvements this specialized organ of the United Nations continues to be faced with the chronic challenges of the past preventing it from implementing the crucial task it shoulders.