Rewriting Human Rights: Christian Conservative Advocacy and the Universal Periodic Review

While global advocacy for human rights has conventionally been understood as a progressive movement, morally conservative actors have increasingly turned to the language of universal human rights to further their agenda. This engagement is not simply reactionary or a form of backlash politics (Vinjamuri, 2017; Alter & Zürn, 2020). Instead, it represents a sophisticated and strategic attempt to reappropriate the legal and moral authority of the international human rights framework. Scholars have increasingly drawn attention to this weaponization of human rights within international organizations (IOs) (Bob, 2019), especially as it is used to halt the development of women’s and LGBTI+ rights norms (e.g. Corredor, 2019; Cupać & Ebetürk, 2022; Sanders & Jenkins, 2022; Ayoub & Stoeckl, 2024; Cupać & Mos, 2025). These studies convincingly reveal how moral conservatives are no longer content to accuse IOs, and especially the United Nations (UN), of liberal bias; instead, they are now harnessing the very institutional mechanisms that they long rebuked. What is missing from the nascent literature is a systematic analysis of how conservative actors employ specific instruments of the human rights framework. I therefore turn to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) as an important mechanism within the UN Human Rights Council through which nongovernmental organizations can promote their interpretation of human rights (Terman & Voeten, 2018; Carraro, 2019). This paper analyzes the strategic engagement of two prominent Christian conservative advocacy groups — the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) and the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International — with the review process. It relies on a qualitative content analysis of all submissions that were submitted after the review mechanism was established in 2006. Three questions drive the analysis: (1) What concrete issues do Christian conservative advocacy groups focus on?; (2) What legal sources and specific human rights do they base their submissions on?; and (3) How do they frame their arguments? The paper finds that, by framing issues such as religious freedom, parental rights, and the protection of the ‘natural family’ through the lens of established treaties, C-Fam and ADF International seek to challenge the progressive monopoly on rights discourse. They have, as such, transitioned from external critics of the UN to insider stakeholders who leverage the UPR with a view to contesting established human rights interpretations.