The Executive Director of the POS Foundation, Mr. Jonathan Osei Owusu, has said Ghana’s participation in the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism has contributed to important changes in the country’s human rights and justice systems, although significant commitments remain outstanding.Speaking in an interview with journalists, he said Ghana’s experience showed that recommendations made by UN member states to Ghana, which Ghana accepted, have produced tangible changes in human rights in Ghana when the recommendations were translated into sustained national advocacy and action, adding that the UPR should not be viewed merely as an international reporting exercise, but as a powerful mechanism for influencing national policy, legislation and institutional reform.Osei Owusu cited the community-sentencing reform as a clear example, noting that during Ghana’s third UPR cycle in 2017, the Netherlands recommended that Ghana consider alternatives to imprisonment for minor offences to help address prison overcrowding. Ghana accepted the recommendation. In the fourth cycle in 2023, Mali again recommended implementation of community service to reduce prison overcrowding, and Ghana supported that recommendation. The progression has now produced a significant legislative outcome with the passage of the Community Service Bill in July 2026 by Parliament providing for community service as an alternative to custodial sentences for specified offences. The Bill awaits presidential assent to become law.But Osei Owusu stressed that the passage of the legislation did not happen in isolation. He highlighted the exceptional and sustained role played by Ghanaian civil society, particularly the POS Foundation, in moving non-custodial sentencing from advocacy to legislation.The Foundation has worked for years on criminal justice reform, including the development and advocacy for a non-custodial sentencing framework. Its work has involved engagement with government institutions, Parliament, the Judiciary, the Ghana Prisons Service, the Attorney-General’s Office and other stakeholders.Osei Owusu said this long-term civil-society engagement was critical because the UPR recommendation itself did not automatically produce legislation. Rather, it provided an international accountability framework around which national actors could organise advocacy, policy development, and implementation.He also highlighted the Foundation’s contribution to the Justice for All Programme (JFAP), which has played a major role in addressing prolonged pre-trial detention and prison overcrowding.The Justice for All Programme was established as a collaborative initiative involving the Judiciary, the Attorney-General’s Office, the Ghana Prisons Service, the Ghana Police Service, CHRAJ and civil-society organisations, with the POS Foundation playing a significant facilitation and advocacy role.Through special in-prison court sittings, the programme has helped review cases of remand prisoners and secure bail, discharge, withdrawal of cases and other forms of relief where appropriate.Osei Owusu said the experience demonstrates that prison decongestion cannot be attributed to government alone. It has been the product of sustained collaboration between state institutions and civil society, with organisations such as the POS Foundation helping to connect policy, advocacy and implementation.He said the community-sentencing reform builds on this experience by creating a broader legal framework through which imprisonment can be avoided for appropriate low-risk offenders.The POS Foundation has now called for the swift development of the legislative instrument required to operationalise the Community Service Bill, stressing that passage of the Bill is only the beginning and that successful implementation will require clear procedures, institutional capacity and community involvement.Osei Owusu also paid tribute to the development partners and donors who have supported Ghana’s human-rights and justice-reform processes over the years, including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).He said donor support had helped civil-society organisations and state institutions undertake research, advocacy, monitoring, capacity building and stakeholder engagement necessary to move reforms forward.“The lesson is that the UPR works best when recommendations do not end in Geneva,” Osei Owusu said. “They have to be taken up nationally, monitored, advocated for and translated into policies, legislation and programmes”, he added.Highlighting one of the gaps, Osei Owusu identified the Property Rights of Spouses Bill as one of the clearest examples of a longstanding UPR implementation challenge.Ghana supported a 2012 recommendation from Iraq calling for gender equality measures including adoption of the Property Rights of Spouses Bill. In 2017, Ghana again supported Australia’s recommendation calling for passage of gender-equality legislation, including the Property Rights of Spouses Bill. Yet the legislation remains outstanding.He noted that the issue is particularly significant because the obligation is not simply a policy commitment. Article 22(2) of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution requires Parliament to enact legislation regulating the property rights of spouses.Osei Owusu said the repeated acceptance of the recommendation without final enactment illustrates the gap that can emerge between Ghana’s international commitments and domestic implementation.On his part, William Nyarko, Executive Director of the Africa Centre for International Law and Accountability (ACILA), said Ghana’s four UPR cycles present a mixed picture of significant progress, persistent implementation gaps and, in some areas, regression.He said some recommendations initially resisted by Ghana had eventually contributed to major reforms, while other recommendations that Ghana accepted years ago remain outstanding.Nyarko identified affirmative action as an example of a reform that eventually moved from repeated UPR recommendations to legislation.He noted that Ghana accepted recommendations in the second and third UPR cycles calling for an affirmative-action framework and the passage of an Affirmative Action Bill. Although the legislative process took years, Parliament eventually enacted the Affirmative Action (Gender Equity) Act, 2024 and has been assented into law.Nyarko said the enactment represents significant progress, although the real test now lies in implementation, compliance by public institutions and whether the law produces measurable improvements in women’s representation.He said the experience illustrates an important feature of the UPR process: a recommendation may take several UPR cycles before it produces a concrete domestic result.On the death penalty, Nyarko said the evolution of Ghana’s position on the death penalty provides perhaps the clearest example of the UPR’s potential impact.During the earlier UPR cycles from 2008, Ghana did not support recommendations calling for abolition or a formal moratorium. In 2012, 15 recommendations concerning abolition, a moratorium and ratification of the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR did not enjoy Ghana’s support.However, the position changed substantially in 2017, when Ghana supported recommendations calling for abolition. By the fourth cycle in 2023, Ghana supported a much larger group of recommendations concerning abolition and commutation. Parliament subsequently passed legislation removing the death penalty for ordinary criminal offences and replacing it with life imprisonment.Nyarko said this represents a major human-rights achievement, although full abolition remains incomplete because constitutional provisions concerning offences such as high treason remain.Nyarko also highlighted the Code of Conduct for Public Officers as a particularly important fourth-cycle commitment. Under recommendation 149.41, Nigeria called on Ghana to:“Continue in its efforts to swiftly enact the Code of Conduct for Public Officers bill.”Ghana supported the recommendation. Nyarko said this is significant because it is a specific legislative commitment, rather than merely a general recommendation to fight corruption.“The test of recommendation 149.41 is ultimately whether Ghana enacts and implements the Code of Conduct for Public Officers Bill,” Nyarko said.The Bill’s continued consideration in 2026 therefore provides a concrete benchmark for assessing Ghana’s implementation of its fourth-cycle UPR commitments.He said that until the Bill is enacted and effectively implemented, Ghana cannot reasonably claim to have fully discharged the commitment it accepted before the Human Rights Council.On recommendations on media freedom and safety, Nyarko said media freedom and journalist safety provide another important test, highlighting that Ghana accepted a recommendation during the 2017 cycle concerning adoption of legislation guaranteeing media freedom. In the fourth cycle, the recommendations became more specific, addressing attacks and intimidation of journalists, impunity, journalist safety, media freedom and access to information.He said Ghana has established institutional mechanisms intended to improve journalist safety, but continuing reports of attacks and intimidation demonstrate that the problem has not been fully resolved, noting that accepting recommendations is only the beginning.“The real measure is whether journalists can actually work without fear, whether attacks are investigated and whether perpetrators are held accountable,” Nyarko said.He said the continuing challenge is therefore not necessarily the absence of institutions, but whether those institutions are adequately empowered and whether perpetrators of attacks are held accountable.On rights of sexual minorities, Nyarko said the UPR record on LGBTQI+ rights is more complex, representing both areas of progress and significant retrogression, particularly in recent years.Ghana has generally not supported recommendations calling for decriminalisation of consensual same-sex relations. At the same time, Ghana has accepted or supported some recommendations concerning protection against violence and investigation of attacks against persons based on sexual orientation or gender identity.That distinction, Nyarko said, demonstrates that Ghana has been willing to support certain protections while resisting recommendations requiring fundamental changes to the legal framework.But he said recent legislative developments point to a worrying element of retrogression as Parliament has passed the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2026, although the measure has not become law. Parliament’s records currently identify the measure as the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2025, which was laid in February 2026.The Bill was passed by Parliament in 2026, but the Speaker subsequently directed Parliament to reconsider it following concerns surrounding the passage and the need for broader engagement. The Speaker has indicated that Parliament can revisit a Bill even after passage, and the legislation remains subject to parliamentary reconsideration before it can proceed to presidential assent.Nyarko said the development creates a sharp contrast between Ghana’s UPR engagement and its recent legislative direction.“On LGBTQI+ issues, the record is not simply one of progress or stagnation. There has been progress in recognising the need to protect people from violence and abuse, but there is also a serious concern about retrogression in the direction of recent legislation,” Nyarko said.He stressed that the Bill should not be described as an enacted law at this stage, because it remains subject to reconsideration and has not received presidential assent.The development is particularly significant in the context of Ghana’s UPR record because recommendations concerning decriminalisation and stronger protection for sexual and gender minorities have repeatedly been raised by UN member states, while Ghana has generally noted or declined to support the substantive recommendations.Nyarko said the situation therefore presents a direct test of Ghana’s approach to its international human-rights commitments and its obligations under the Constitution and international human-rights instruments.Both Osei Owusu and Nyarko emphasised that the impact of the UPR cannot be assessed without recognising the contribution of Ghanaian civil society. The POS Foundation has played a particularly prominent role in the UPR process, including facilitating civil-society participation, monitoring implementation and advocating for reforms in the justice and human-rights sectors.Osei Owusu said civil society’s role has been especially important because the UPR is a continuing process rather than a one-day event.For Osei Owusu and Nyarko, the central lesson is therefore clear: The UPR matters when recommendations move from Geneva to Ghana—from international commitments to national legislation, institutional reform and measurable improvements in people’s rights.Osei Owusu said the passage of the Community Service Bill demonstrates that this process can work when government, Parliament, civil society and development partners sustain engagement over time.Nyarko, meanwhile, said the remaining gaps should become a central part of Ghana’s preparation for its next UPR cycle.“The question should no longer be simply how many recommendations Ghana accepted,” Nyarko said. “The question is how many accepted recommendations have actually been implemented, and whether implementation has changed the lived experience of people in Ghana.” As Ghana looks toward its next UPR cycle, the four previous reviews provide both a record of achievement and an accountability tool: recommendations accepted by Ghana should be tracked to completion, while areas of regression should receive close scrutiny.