According to a recent report by the Pew Research Center , violence and discrimination against religious groups by governments, as well as social hostilities by a variety of actors, have reached new heights in all regions except the Americas. This bleak picture is supported by the findings of the latest report on religious freedom by the US State Department, which concluded that 2013 saw “the largest displacement …
The work of the Human Rights Council is definitely underestimated. This point immediately struck me when I was elected President of the Council for the year 2015, and international and German media representatives approached me for interviews. “Isn’t the Council a tiger without teeth?” “What can the Council achieve without being able to impose sanctions like the Security Council?” “Looking …
The Post-2015 Human Rights Caucus – a broad coalition of development, environmental, feminist, trade union and human rights organizations worldwide, which the Universal Rights Group is proud to be a member of – had produced the following response to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Report “The Road to Dignity by 2030: Ending Poverty, Transforming All Lives and Protecting the Planet” (The ‘Synthesis Report’): “We warmly …
Last week’s appalling attack against journalists and police officers at the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, and the cascade of comment and counter-comment that has followed, remind us once again of both the importance of, and the sensitivities that surround, the relationship between freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief, and non-discrimination. Identifying and understanding the contours of that relationship …
Beyond 2015 – a global civil society campaign which the URG is proud to be a part of – has published a reaction paper to the UN Secretary General’s synthesis report, The road to dignity by 2030: ending poverty, transforming all lives and protecting the planet , an important contribution to the post-2015 process. In the reaction paper, Beyond2015 provides a review of the Secretary General’s broader call for an ambitious, universal agenda, with equality and equity, participation, people and planet at the …
World leaders have called for an ambitious long-term sustainability agenda to succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the end of 2015. The post-2015 development agenda is expected to address the unfinished business of the MDGs. Requested by UN Member States to pull together inputs from all strands on the post-2015 development agenda, the UN Secretary General presented on 4 …
Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the emergence of an international legal framework for protecting and promoting human rights, new challenges have constantly emerged in our rapidly-changing world. These challenges include climate change; the fight against poverty; global terrorist movements; issues related to migration; threats to privacy in cyberspace; or unforeseen economic and financial crises …
It is almost impossible to turn on the news today without witnessing scenes of hatred, violence and intolerance perpetrated in the name of religion or belief. The march of ISIL across Syria and Iraq, with associated reports of gross and systematic violations of human rights, may be an extreme example of such hatred, but it is part of a broad …
17th December 2014, Geneva Barbados and Tuvalu have become the first two countries to benefit from the Fellowship Program under the Voluntary Trust Fund for the participation of SIDS and LDCs in the work of the Human Rights. In 2012, the UN Human Rights Council adopted the resolution to establish the Voluntary Technical Assistance Trust Fund to Support the Participation …
To mark Human Rights Day 2014, the Universal Rights Group has commissioned a global media survey analysing the quantity and content of coverage of the Human Rights Council. Such an analysis of media interest in and opinions on the Council and its mechanisms is a useful means of understanding how the body is seen beyond the cantonal boundaries of Geneva, …
