Category: Human Rights

The United Kingdom Labour Party is about to meet for its annual conference. Now that Labour is in government, with their leader Keir Starmer as prime minister, it should act to strengthen social security, and tackle poverty and inequality. The first concrete step should be immediately ending the cruel “two-child limit” policy. The “two-child limit” […]

Following severe flooding across Central and Eastern Europe, the EU has mobilised assistance through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism at the request of Czechia and Poland. In Czechia, several EU member states have stepped in to provide crucial support. Slovenia, Belgium, Croatia and Germany have sent hundreds of dehumidifiers, essential for drying water-damaged buildings and […]

A September 9 internal report by the United Nations Population Fund, the UN agency tasked with improving reproductive and maternal health, found that 268 out of the 348 women held in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Makala prison – nearly 80 percent – were victims of rape and other sexual violence when an attempted […]

The European Union has released €5.4 million in humanitarian aid to help the most affected populations in the aftermath of the devastating floods in Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Mali and Burkina Faso.  More than 4.4 million people are estimated to be affected in the six countries. Floods have led to the destruction of houses, public […]

The International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) July advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is a landmark ruling. The ICJ’s findings are legally and morally persuasive, and set out obligations on all states, and on the United Nations itself. Two of its important conclusions are with respect to […]

Earlier this month, Meta’s Oversight Board found that three Facebook posts containing the phrase “From the River to the Sea” did not violate Meta’s content rules and should remain online. The majority of the Oversight Board members concluded that the phrase, widely used at protests to show solidarity with Palestinians, is not inherently a violation of […]

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, said the country’s de facto rulers who have imposed their own interpretation of strict Islamic law have “delivered a period of stability not seen in decades” in Afghanistan, yet the population is at risk of a worsened humanitarian and development crisis as international funding declines. […]

The Indonesian government’s suppression of widespread protests after a 2019 attack on Papuan university students highlighted longstanding racial discrimination against Indigenous Papuans.   Indonesian security forces have committed arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, extrajudicial killings, and mass forced displacement, but are seldom held to account for these abuses. Indonesia’s new government should urgently review existing policies […]

The alert from the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine follows significant destruction to power plants and the worsening energy crisis that has affected access to electricity, clean water and heating, while also pushing up prices for consumers. The strikes on the national grid included one coordinated attack on 26 August which the Mission […]

Last Friday, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a law making, among other provisions, one year of pre-primary education compulsory, further strengthening the right to education for South Africa’s children. From a human rights perspective, compulsory education is primarily an obligation on governments to ensure quality education is free, accessible, and inclusive. The law also […]