The Universal Rights Group (URG) is a think tank focused on strengthening the enjoyment of human rights around the world by supporting the improved operation, delivery, and on-the-ground impact of the multilateral human rights system; making that system more accessible and responsive to the needs of developing countries, including Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS); empowering (e.g., through capacity-building support) governments, local civil society, and other national actors, to better leverage the State’s engagement with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms, and the Treaty Bodies, to drive domestic change; and working with UN Country Teams and bilateral development partners to improve support for the effective implementation of State’s international human rights obligations and commitments.

URG’s headquarters is located in Geneva. It also maintains permanent offices in Bogota, Colombia (to cover the Latin America region), and Nairobi, Kenya (to cover the Africa region). URG also maintains a small office in New York as part of a partnership with the School of Law of New York University (NYU).

Objectivity, independence and quality of work – URG is one of the few international human rights NGOs that succeeds in regularly working with developing countries, including LDCs and SIDS, to strengthen their cooperation with the UN human rights system as a means of bringing about real on-the-ground change. This is because URG has secured the confidence of developing countries and relevant national stakeholders, who tend to trust the organisation’s objectivity, independence, and the quality of its work.

Impact – all URG outputs are premised on delivering real change and real impact on issues of immediate relevance and importance to human rights around the world.

Innovation – in the ten years since its establishment, URG has become one of the most influential human rights civil society organisations at the UN, and is a key thought-leader in terms of shaping the agenda of the UN human rights system. Many of today’s key institutional and thematic priorities at the Council and across the wider UN human rights pillar (including OHCHR) began life in URG Global Strategic Plans (GSPs).

Inclusivity – the Group seeks to provide a platform for all States, especially developing States (with a particular emphasis on LDCs and SIDS), to engage with, participate in, and derive benefits from the work of the international human rights system. It promotes a cross-regionalism and gender-balance in everything it does.

Leverage – a particular focus of URG's work is on how to leverage official development assistance (ODA) to support the domestic implementation of States’ international human rights obligations and commitments, and, linked with this, how to leverage human rights progress to also support the realisation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and to help prevent crises and conflicts.