Video
You are not alone
20 November 2019
Learn more about environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) working at the interface of human rights and environmental protection - often at great personal risk.
URG Insights
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…
previous URG Insights
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…
Duplication or complementarity? A comparative analysis of Human Rights Council and Third Committee resolutions
by Grace Kennedy, former Universal Rights Group NYC
In recent years many have begun to take a closer look to the relationship between the Human Rights Council and the Third Committee of the General Assembly. As we near the end of 2019 now is an apt time to review the work done by both bodies this year and the level of efficiency achieved. Do these two key human rights bodies form a coherent whole, with each playing a clearly-defined and logical role in the overall UN human rights system? Or is the relationship more characterised by incoherence, duplication and contradiction? One way of answering such questions is to…
Report on the 74th session of the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly
by URG-NYC Team
Quick summary During the 74th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), the Third Committee, the UNGA Committee tasked with addressing human rights issues and concerns, ran from 1 October 2019 through 21 November 2019, at UN Headquarters in New York. This year’s Third Committee featured presentations by a number of senior UN officials, including Ms. Michelle Bachelet, the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Mr. Andrew Gilmour, Assistant Secretary General for Human Rights; and H.E. Mr. Coly Seck, President of the Human Rights Council. The full list can be found here. The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Bachelet, now…
latest policy report
November 2019
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…
previous policy reports
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,…Eight years of the Istanbul process on combatting religions intolerance: Taking stock
The main intergovernmental policy framework for combatting religious intolerance, stigmatisation, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons based on religion or belief is set…URG next event
Is there a human right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment?
Public event
Building on earlier work by the Commission on Human Rights, the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms have been actively engaged on the topic of human rights and the environment. They have made enormous progress in clarifying and setting down the human rights normative framework as it relates to the environment and to environmental protection. ...future events
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past events
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13 Dec 2019
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12 Dec 2019
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05 Dec 2019
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28 Nov 2019
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18 Nov 2019
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