The 60th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council

8 September – 8 October 2025

Item 6: UPR Spain

(26 September 2024)

Joint Oral Statement by Union of Arab Jurists, Association Ma’onah for Human Rights and Immigration (AMHRI), International-Lawyers.Org and Geneva International Centre for Justice (GICJ)

Madam Vice-President,

We thank Spain for its constructive engagement with the Universal Periodic Review and for its cooperation with the Working Group. We welcome Spain’s continued commitment to advancing human rights at the national and international levels.

We commend the adoption of Spain’s five-year National Human Rights Plan, as well as the 2022 Democratic Memory Law, which is grounded in the principles of truth, justice, reparation, and non-repetition. We further welcome Spain’s legal reforms to strengthen protection against gender-based violence. We also note with appreciation the establishment of the National Office for Human Rights Guarantees in 2022, which works to ensure compliance by State security forces with national and international standards on the elimination of torture.

At the same time, we encourage Spain to take additional steps to implement the recommendations it has accepted during this review cycle. In particular, we highlight the importance of combating racism and xenophobia, addressing human trafficking, enhancing the protection of migrants and minorities, and ensuring that human rights are safeguarded in the development of new technologies, including artificial intelligence.

We also recognize Spain’s principled leadership in upholding international law, including its ratification of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and its steadfast support for the rights of the Palestinian people. Such commitment reflects Spain’s broader role in promoting justice, accountability, and human dignity. We request Spain to consider the following recommendations made by State of Palestine;

- Continue efforts to fulfil responsibilities as a third State against internationally wrongful acts, in particular the prevention of genocide (State of Palestine)

- Continue efforts to combat all forms of racism, xenophobia and intolerance (State of Palestine)

- Redouble efforts to establish additional educational infrastructure in rural areas (State of Palestine

Finally, we encourage Spain to sustain and strengthen its engagement with the UPR process, and we look forward to witnessing the positive impact of its implementation of recommendations in the coming years.

Thank you.