Policy report
Measuring the Impact of the UN Human Rights System on the Enjoyment of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
The central, transformative pledge of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ‘leave no one behind’ cannot be achieved without the inclusion of the estimated one billion people around the world living today with…
Policy report
OSLO+5 – Human rights-based approach to development and accelerating progress towards gender equality
On 29-30 September 2025, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland, supported by the Universal Rights Group, and the Oslo+ Steering Group, hosted the fifth Oslo+ meeting of bilateral and multilateral development experts to share good practices in evolving human rights-based…
Policy report
Confronting Inequality and Leaving No-One Behind
Leave no one behind (LNOB) is the central, transformative promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It represents the unequivocal commitment of all UN member States to eradicate poverty in all its forms,…
Policy report
Introducing a Human Rights-Powered Approach
If the UN80 reforms are to succeed, the UN human rights system must take centre stage – driving a human rights-powered approach to sustainable development, building democratic resilience, environmental action, and preventing crises and conflict.
Policy report
A Human Rights Powered Approach to Gender Equality
2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), the world’s most widely endorsed and visionary agenda for achieving gender equality, empowering all women and girls, and ensuring the full enjoyment of…
Policy report
Realising human rights as a critical contribution to confronting the triple planetary crisis
From March 2023 through March 2024, the Universal Rights Group (URG) conducted an analysis to assess and understand the extent to which the United Nations (UN) human rights system focuses on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss,…
Policy report
Harnessing human rights towards a mine-free world: Restoring victims' rights, promoting sustainable development and peace
Once an armed conflict ends, its impacts on human life and rights go beyond the casualties and destruction caused during hostilities. Explosive ordnance is left behind, often for decades. Landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) are, in the words…
Policy report
Protecting the Frontline: Good practices for Recognising and Supporting Environmental Human Rights Defenders
Across the world, environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) have been catalysing actions to safeguard a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Their work has been crucial to the protection and respect of their human rights, the rights of their communities, and,…
Policy report
Understanding human rights related to the environment: exploring their scope and implications
The objective of this document is to provide information about the status and scope of human rights related to the environment to States, United Nations entities, other intergovernmental organizations, civil society, and the private sector. It aims to support their…
Policy report
The emergence and evolution of National Mechanisms for Implementation, Reporting, and Follow-up
This report addresses one great unanswered question: how do States implement the recommendations they receive from the three main UN human rights mechanisms, thereby bringing national laws, policies, and practices into ever greater alignment with their obligations under IHRL?
Policy report
From reaction to prevention: report of transatlantic roundtable on prevention
Meeting report
This report summarises the transatlantic dialogue on prevention organised by International Crisis Group and the Universal Rights Group, in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on 20th February 2023.
Policy report
For people; for planet: The long and winding road to UN recognition of the universal right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment
This report seeks to tell the story of the journey towards the recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (R2E) and address the three interlinked environmental crises facing the planet – the climate, biodiversity, and pollution…
Policy report
Advancing Rights, Transforming Lives
This report reviews how the UN human rights system has taken up women’s rights, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights and the degree to which these recommendations have been translated into action, with UNFPA’s support.
Policy report
Unpacking the Right to a Healthy Environment: How national and regional laws and jurisprudence clarify the scope and content of the universal right
This report examines this body of practice, namely the features and best practices associated with the global implementation of the right to a healthy environment.
Policy report
'A diamond in the rough’: how to strengthen the Human Rights Council's delivery of technical assistance and capacity building (Item 10 reform)
The policy brief provides thoughts on how the Council might strengthen the delivery of domestic capacity-building support in the future – how it might ‘reset and revitalize item 10.’
Tool
What is the state of human rights and democracy around the world?
Is the situation of human rights around the world getting better or worse? Which UN member States are fulfilling their human rights obligations, and which are routinely violating the rights of their people? Is democracy really in retreat around the…
You are not alone
Learn more about environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) working at the interface of human rights and environmental protection - often at great personal risk.
