Video
The Prevention Council
3 February 2020
For the UN’s prevention agenda to work, it is vital to build a business case for placing human rights at its heart.
URG Insights
The Human Rights Council in 2020 – Views of the 14th President of the Human Rights Council H.E. Ms. Elisabeth Tichy-Fisslberger
by H.E. Elisabeth TICHY-FISSLBERGER, President of the UN Human Rights Council
Geneva, 20 February 2020 It is a very special honour for me to preside over the Human Rights Council during this year, and I am fully aware of the responsibility I have assumed from my predecessor. The Human Rights Council is unique in many ways. Unlike many other UN bodies, the Council provides a place where States and civil society can enter into direct conversation and human rights defenders as well as victims of human rights violations are given the space to tell their stories. It is a huge year-round machinery involving thousands of people, which produces a tremendous amount…
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The UN Human Development Report must go farther on inequality
by Steven L. B. Jensen, Researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights
This post first appeared on OpenGlobalRights. In December, UNDP launched the Human Development Report 2019. It was announced in advance that the new report would reconceptualize human development around the concept of inequality. This framing offers a more holistic take on existing injustices around the world. The report combines income and wealth inequalities with those more traditionally associated with human development such as health and educational inequalities. Added to the mix are inequalities likely to dominate the 21st century, namely those related to climate change and access to technology and required skills in the knowledge economy. The report’s sub-title carries in…
Inequality a prominent concern for UN human rights monitors
by Steven L. B. Jensen Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Human Rights
UN human rights bodies are highlighting inequality when making recommendations to states – showing that this issue should be seen and acted on as a central human rights concern. Do human rights have anything to say about material inequality? The question is worth asking, especially in light of recent critiques. In his 2018 book Not Enough – Human Rights in an Unequal World, historian Samuel Moyn argued that “… the critical reason that human rights have been a powerless companion of market fundamentalism is that they have simply nothing to say about material inequality.” Others, including Jackie Dugard, Ignazio Saiz…
Spotlight on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights at the UN
by Grace Kennedy, former Universal Rights Group NYC
In Michelle Bachelet’s address at the 74th session of the Third Committee at the UN General Assembly (GA) she highlighted recent ‘pushbacks on women’s equality’ and the need for a ‘pushback to the pushback.’ Indeed, over the last several years, women’s rights, and especially women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), have been a point of contention at the UN. There has been a relitigation of previously agreed upon language contained in resolutions promoting SRHR. While those at the UN focus on this transgression of norms, tangible progress on SRHR has stalled. Agreed language can be useful to set…
Towards a new accountability? EU adds to growing momentum behind ‘Magnitsky acts’
by the URG team
On 9th December, the day before International Human Rights Day, EU foreign ministers took the historic decision to begin work on an EU-wide ‘Magnitsky act.’ The decision came just over a year after the Dutch Foreign Minister, Stef Blok, gave a landmark speech to his European counterparts in which he drew attention to the crucial importance of accountability for serious human rights violations. Without such accountability, he said, the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will never be fulfilled. So-called ‘Magnitsky acts,’ named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian tax accountant who died in a Moscow prison after…
latest policy report
The report calls on the international community to learn from past mistakes and place a robust Human Rights Council prevention strategy at the centre of…
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OSLO+1 - International support for the national implementation of UN human rights recommendations, including as a contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals
On 10 May 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden and the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation (Sida), in cooperation with the Universal…Policy or aspiration: shedding light on the current status of the UN's Human Rights Up Front initiative
The question of ‘what happened to Human Rights up Front’ is an oft repeated refrain in meetings with New York civil society. However, little consistent,…URG next event
The Glion Human Rights Dialogue 2020 (‘Glion VII’): ‘Human rights in the digital age: making digital technology work for human rights’
By invitation only
The Glion Human Rights Dialogue is a retreat bringing together around sixty senior policy-makers and other stakeholders in an informal, non-attributable setting designed to promote open, forward-looking and solutions-oriented debate. This year’s Dialogue, which is organised by the Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the URG, in partnership with the Permanent Missions of Botswana, Fiji, Iceland, Mexico, Senegal, and Thailand, will ...future events
past events
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11 Feb 2020
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07 Feb 2020
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06 Feb 2020
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06 Feb 2020
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13 Dec 2019
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