On December 17, 2014 Sona Ayvazyan, Deputy Director of Transparency International Anticorruption Center (TIAC) took part in a discussion “International Obligations of Armenia in Human Rights: Universal Periodic Review (UPR)” organized by Media Center. The participants in the discussion representing TIAC, Journalists' Club "Asparez", Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Vanadzor Office and “Real World, Real People” NGOs presented alternative reports during UPR pre-session meeting on Armenia, held in Geneva on December 2-4, 2014.

During the pre-session meeting Sona Ayvazyan came up with recommendations related to electoral right, cultural right, right to live in a healthy and safe environment and right to property.

The UPR is a process through which the human rights records of the UNs’ 193 Member States are reviewed and assessed. It is a mechanism that enables states to discuss, question and find practical ways of ensuring compliance with their international human rights obligations and find further ways of improving the human rights situation on the ground. Individual countries are slated for review every four and a half years. Within the framework of UPD every state undergoes a peer review by other states on implementation of human rights obligations based upon commitments expressed in Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The first Universal Periodic Review of the human rights situation in the Republic of Armenia was completed in May, 2010. Armenia failed to implement some obligations assumed in 2010. Armenia assumed an obligation to adopt a law on domestic violence, however the bill was turned down in 2013 by the National Assembly of Armenia.

In the opinion of Sona Ayvazyan the Armenian Government displayed resistance to adopting the law on domestic violence. The Government claimed that the issue was stipulated by Criminal Code. However it actually could not regulate the problem. Adoption of a separate law implies not only identification of instances of domestic violence and their detection but also prevention.