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 project, then and now
by Dr Bertrand Ramcharan, Previously First Swiss Chair, and Professor of International Human Rights Law, Geneva Graduate Institute
The 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will be celebrated on 10 December, 2023. It is timely to look back at human rights project at the start of the UN and to reflect on where it should go next. In 2005 the World Council of Churches (WCC) published a remarkable book by John Nurser, For All Peoples and Nations. Christian Churches and Human Rights.[1] It provided an insightful account of the role of the WCC, its Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), and the latter’s Director, Fred Nolde, in the origin and shaping of the…
previous URG Insights
Report on the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council
by Geneva
Quick Summary The 52nd regular session of the Human Rights Council (HRC52) was held from Monday 27th February to Tuesday 4th April 2023. As the main session of the Council, HRC52 began with a High-Level Segment (HLS). The 2023 HLS included speeches by more than 130 world leaders, including three heads or deputy heads of State, eight heads or deputy heads of government, and 117 ministers or vice-ministers, as well as representatives from international organisations. An analysis of the content and focus of the high-level speeches can be read here. On 7 March, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,…
Building momentum towards the realisation of environmental rights in Africa
by Joseph Burke, Tom Bicko, Universal Rights Group (ALLIED coordinator)
In the powerful words of the global environmental icon, Professor Wangari Maathai, ‘[t]here comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness so that she stops threatening its life-support system.’ The twin resolutions by the UN Human Rights Council (resolution 48/13, adopted on 8 October 2021) and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) (resolution 76/300, adopted on 28 July 2022) that recognised the universal right of everyone, everywhere, to live in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment evidenced a growing global consciousness regarding our planet. The landmark resolutions, historic in themselves, were also a new…
Report of the 35th Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the deteriorating human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran
by Geneva
On Thursday 24 November 2022, the Human Rights Council convened a special session to address ‘the deteriorating human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially with respect to women and children’. The Special Session was requested via an official letter dated 11 November signed by H.E. Katharina Stasch, Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva, and H.E. Einar Gunnarsson Permanent Representative of Iceland to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva. This letter, addressed to H.E. Federico Villegas, President of the Human Rights…
Have the 2022 elections produced a stronger or a weaker Human Rights Council?
by Marc Limon, Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group, Joseph Burke
On 11 October 2022, the UN General Assembly (GA) in New York convened to elect new members of the Human Rights Council for the term 2023-2025. As soon as the votes were cast and members elected, diplomats and civil society representatives, as always, began to ask themselves whether the newly composed Council (which will sit from 1 January next year) will be better or worse than the outgoing one? To answer this question objectively, it is instructive to compare the human rights records and commitments of incoming members (as measured against the criteria and election set out in GA resolution…
latest policy report
On 8-9 June 2022, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (Peace and Human Rights Division, and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), with the…
previous policy reports
Guide to the 2022 Human Rights Council Elections
The eighth annual yourHRC.org Guide to the Human Rights Council elections provides comprehensive at-a-glance information on the 2022 Council elections (which are scheduled to take…SUPPORTING ENVIRONMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS: Developing New Guidance for Donors and Civil Society Organisations
Over the last two years, the Alliance for Land, Indigenous, and Environmental Defenders (ALLIED) worked closely with defenders and local organisations in five countries: Brazil,…Understanding and responding to the protection needs of climate activists and movements
As climate change impacts our everyday lives, livelihoods, and ecosystems, significantly harming the world’s most vulnerable populations, thousands of individuals and groups have raised their…URG next event
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28 Sep 2022
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16 May 2022
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27 Apr 2022
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26 Apr 2022
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12 Apr 2022
The Istanbul Process is the dedicated mechanism for follow-up on the implementation of the action plan set out in Human Rights Council resolution 16/18 on combatting intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatisation of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief.
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