Kofi Annan called the Special Procedures 'crown jewel' of the United Nations Human Rights mechanisms. The thesis examines the work of the Special Procedures and their position within the United Nations and the Human Rights Council. Further, an analysis identifying the most controversial mandates among the Special Procedures is conducted based on the voting records in the Human Rights Council. Those mandates are further analyzed and the arguments in favour of the existence of the mandates and critiques are explained.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the power and capacity of the UN Human Rights Council to promote and protect human rights through the recommendations by the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review. The aim is then to analyse the recommendations and their effect by using the Concept of power by Robert Dahl (2007). The essay aims to answer the question if the Human Rights Council has power over the countries Russia and Afghanistan together with the questions about the effect of the recommendations. The method chosen for this thesis is qualitative one as it is a comparative case-study. As a theory is used as a lens to analyse the findings it is an abductive study. The conclusion of this study is that the recommendations have not succeeded to promote or protect human rights in Afghanistan or Russia and thus the Human rights Council has no power.