The Power of the Human Rights Council : A comparative case-study of Afghanistan and Russia

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to study the power and capacity of the UN Human Rights Council to promote and protect human rights through the recommendations by the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review. The aim is then to analyse the recommendations and their effect by using the Concept of power by Robert Dahl (2007). The essay aims to answer the question if the Human Rights Council has power over the countries Russia and Afghanistan together with the questions about the effect of the recommendations. The method chosen for this thesis is qualitative one as it is a comparative case-study. As a theory is used as a lens to analyse the findings it is an abductive study. The conclusion of this study is that the recommendations have not succeeded to promote or protect human rights in Afghanistan or Russia and thus the Human rights Council has no power.