Ahead of Lebanon’s fourth Universal Periodic Review (UPR), with the session set to take place on January 19, 2026, TIMEP—together with the Arab Reform Initiative and Badil | the Alternative Policy Institute—submitted a joint stakeholder report on economic and social rights in Lebanon to the UPR Working Group to offer critical insights to inform the process.
This fact sheet summarizes the contents of that report, highlighting the key violations of economic and social rights in Lebanon since the country’s last UPR review. It also details a series of recommendations to Lebanon to ensure compliance with its international and constitutional obligations, including to:
- Respect, protect, and fulfill the rights to health, education, social security, and an adequate standard of living for the population, particularly vulnerable and marginalized groups.
- Increase public spending in education, healthcare, social security, and housing to meet international standards.
- Implement the necessary policy reforms to combat corruption and to ensure good governance practices, while passing laws and policies to address and manage the economic collapse.
The UPR is a UN Human Rights Council mechanism through which all UN member states undergo a peer review of their human rights records every four and a half years. The UPR offers a unique opportunity for civil society organizations to highlight key human rights concerns in the country under review, assess the state’s progress in that regard since the last review, and put forward recommendations to bring about and ensure the state’s compliance with its international obligations. Lebanon underwent its first UPR cycle in November 2010, its second in November 2015, and its third in January 2021, with the fourth review set to take place in January 2026.