Category: Human Rights

In an unprecedented move, the United Nations committee of independent child rights experts has cancelled an upcoming series of meetings due to lack of funds. The shortfall was caused by the failure of some countries to pay their membership dues. This is the latest example of the UN’s human rights monitoring role being undermined by […]

Today, leading Russian human rights defender Oleg Orlov turned 71. He spent his birthday behind bars, his health deteriorating not least due to exhausting daily transport from jail to court and back. A Moscow court sentenced Orlov to 2 years and 6 months in prison on outlandish charges of “discrediting” Russia’s armed forces. Orlov, who had […]

Painting a grim landscape of the world’s war zones, Virginia Gamba, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, briefed ambassadors, citing grave concerns, from war-torn Gaza to gang-ravaged Haiti, where famine looms amid rampant violence and displacement. Denying aid access has long-lasting effects on children’s wellbeing and development, she said. Virginia Gamba, Special […]

(Beirut) – Bulgarian authorities should immediately investigate allegations that police officers assaulted a Saudi human rights activist in their custody, Human Rights Watch said today. An informed source told Human Rights Watch that law enforcement officers at the Busmanci Migrant Accommodation Center had allegedly assaulted Abdulrahman al-Khalidi, a Saudi rights activist, on March 31, 2024, […]

“Here’s a little Black boy from Louisville, Kentucky, sitting in the United Nations talking to presidents of the world, why? Because I’m a good boxer,” he said at a press conference at UN Headquarters in 1979. “I needed boxing to get here. So, my purpose is to use boxing to get to people.” Devoting most […]

2024-25 Satter Fellow: Aizhan Tilenbaeva HRP is delighted to announce the 2024-25 Satter Fellow Aizhan Tilenbaeva LLM ’22. Aizhan is a human rights and international humanitarian lawyer from Kyrgyzstan. During her Satter fellowship, she will be placed with Global Rights Compliance in Ukraine, concentrating her efforts on promoting justice and accountability as part of the […]

Myanmar’s already abysmal human rights situation is getting worse. That’s what senior United Nations officials told the UN Security Council on April 4, during a rare open meeting on Myanmar, its first since February 2019. The council heard of a spiraling human rights and humanitarian catastrophe, with particularly worrisome abuses in Rakhine State. Conflict has […]

The consequences have plunged the Caribbean nation into an ongoing political and humanitarian crisis. Currently, there are “unprecedented levels of lawlessness”, UNODC’s regional representative Sylvie Bertrand told UN News. From Russian AK-47s and United States-made AR-15s to Israeli Galil assault rifles, a spike in trafficking increasingly sophisticated weaponry has gripped Haiti since 2021, said the […]

The following statement was released by the Governments of the United States of America and Spain on the occasion of the Central America Working Group. At the U.S.-Spain Working Group on Central America both parties underscored the importance of international support for the peoples of Central America and highlighted the steadfast work of local civil […]

  Colombia and Panama are failing to effectively protect and assist hundreds of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers in the Darién Gap and to investigate abuses there. Over half a million people, including 113,000 children, crossed the Darién Gap in 2023. Panamanian authorities estimate that the number of people crossing is likely to be […]