An Amnesty International report card has New Zealand rating poorly in advocacy for human rights.

LISTEN ABOVE: Amnesty spokesperson Grant Bayldon speaks to the Mike Hosking Breakfast

The organisation has reviewed the last seven months New Zealand has been on the UN Security Council, against promises by the government to make progress on the issue.

Amnesty International Executive director Grant Bayldon believes there have been ample missed opportunities to make a difference to people's rights world-wide.

"For example, New Zealand put the issue of small island developing states on the agenda, but then failed to discuss what was really the elephant in the room, which is really high rates of violence against women in small island developing states," he said.

Bayldon was expecting New Zealand to be strong on protecting civilians - but he thinks we have missed ample opportunities to do so.

He said it comes down to simple things like improving peace-keeping operations, which New Zealand is meant to be good at.

"Those are things New Zealand knows a lot about and how to do well, and needs to be a lot stronger on improving those."