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
New UK Magnitsky-style human rights sanction regime ‘an important step forward for accountability’
by Louis Mason, Universal Rights Group
Last Monday (6 July 2020), the UK became the latest country to join the growing ‘Magnitsky momentum’ by passing the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations, allowing the Government to sanction alleged perpetrators of the gravest forms of human rights violations. Introducing the Regulations in Parliament, the UK Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, said: “Today this Government and this House sends a very clear message on behalf of the British people: that those with blood on their hands, the thugs of despots, or the henchmen of dictators, won’t be free to waltz into this country to buy up property on the Kings…
previous URG Insights
Introducing ‘The Pacific Principles of Practice’ for effective national implementation
by Marc Limon, Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group
On 3 July a Human Rights Council side event was held at the Australian Mission in Geneva. Except for the fact that it was a COVID-era ‘hybrid’ side event, held simultaneously offline and online, at a superficial-level the side event was much like any other. Yet dig a little below the surface and the event was extraordinary – or rather, it marked an extraordinary, even historic, moment for the universal human rights system: the launch of the world’s first intergovernmental principles designed to guide States in the effective implementation of their international human rights obligations. In many ways it is…
Human rights and the UN Charter: NGOs made the difference
by Felice Gaer, Director, AJC’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights
June 26, 2020 At the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, there is a plaque on the wall of the Garden Room that reads: 25 April - 26 June 1945 In this room met the Consultants of forty-two national organizations assigned to the United States Delegation at the Conference on International Organizations in which the United Nations Charter was drafted. Their contribution is particularly reflected in the Charter provisions for human rights and United Nations consultation with private organizations. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) prepared this plaque to record and remember their achievement. If not for the coordination, engagement, and persuasive advocacy by…
Report on the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council
by the URG team
The 43rd regular session of the Human Rights Council (HRC43) was held in two segments, as the session had to be suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first segment took place from Monday 24 February until Friday 13 March. The 43rd session resumed on Monday 15 June and ended on Tuesday 23 June 2020. As it is the main annual session of the Council, HRC43 began with a High-Level Segment (HLS). The 2020 HLS included speeches by 100 State and other dignitaries, including: H.E. Milo Djukanović, President of Montenegro; H.E. Faiez Mustafa Serraj, President of the Presidency Council of…
Report of the Council’s urgent debate on current racially inspired human rights violations, systematic racism, police brutality against people of African descent and violence against peaceful protests during HRC43
by the URG team
On Wednesday 17 June, in the context of the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council, which resumed on Monday 12 June following its suspension to comply with COVID-19 health measures, an urgent debate was convened on the ‘current racially inspired human rights violations, systematic racism, police brutality against people of African descent and violence against peaceful protests.’ The urgent debate was requested through an official letter from H.E. Ambassador Diedonné W. Désiré Sougouri of Burkina Faso on behalf of the African Group and addressed to the President of the Human Rights Council on 12 June 2020. Urgent debates can…
latest policy report
In the midst of the COVID-19 public health emergency and economic crisis, as we yearn for the social contact and cultural activities that define our…
previous policy reports
The Prevention Council: The business case for placing human rights at the heart of the UN’s prevention agenda
UN efforts over the past thirty years to shift its approach to crises and conflicts from reaction to prevention have largely failed for two main…The Human Rights Council in 2019
‘The Human Rights Council in 2019’ report aims to provide, inter alia: A written analysis of the main events and development at the Council in…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
Launch – Istanbul Process report and istanbulprocess1618.info website
Public event
On 18-19 November 2019, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands with the support of the Universal Rights Group (URG) hosted the seventh meeting of the Istanbul Process. The meeting was entitled, ‘Combatting religious intolerance: building inclusive and resilient societies, and pushing back against incitement to hatred and violence.’ This was ...future events
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