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
Boosting the financial transparency of UN Special Procedures
by Gregor Puppinck, Director of the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ)
I was very surprised, roughly a year ago, to find out that several UN Special Procedures mandate-holders (independent UN human rights experts), were receiving substantial financial contributions from governments, and even from private foundations, and that many of those contributions are made without any kind of formal financial oversight or transparency. I therefore decided to look further into this issue, having already published a report (February 2020) on similar concerns in the European human rights system (‘NGOs and the Judges of the ECHR, 2009 - 2019’). We started the research by analysing the financial declarations published annually between 2015 and…
previous URG Insights
Report of the 31st Special Session of the Human Rights Council on the Serious Human Rights Concerns and Situation in Afghanistan
by the URG team
On Tuesday 24 August 2021, the Human Rights Council convened a special session to address the ‘serious human rights concerns and situation in Afghanistan’. The special session was requested via an official letter dated 17 August 2021 and signed by H.E. Khalil Hashmi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the UN in Geneva, in his capacity as Coordinator of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Human Rights and Humanitarian Issues, as well as H.E. Dr. Nasir Ahmad Andisha, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the UN in Geneva. This letter, addressed to…
‘Who controls the present controls the past’: Identity politics and the right to education
by Courtney Halverson, URG NYC
Education is often described as the ‘great equalizer’.The right to education can propel people of all ages towards better futures through the inherent understanding of their own and others’ inviolable rights. History education in particular helps children understand the foundations of the State and society in which their rights are exercised, and yet, as can be seen with political issues with the history of the Srebrenica genoicde in Bosnia and the partisan divide over ‘critical race theory’ in the US, historical education cannot be assumed to be immune from manipulation or politicization. The dangers the world presently faces only magnify…
No longer stuck in limbo: the Shona people of Kenya receive national identification cards
by Kerry Pearson, Universal Rights Group
The challenge of statelessness has pervaded the international community for decades, with the UNHCR estimating that 12 million people currently hold no nationality. Stateless persons are often subjected to human rights violations, inhibiting their access to education, health services, employment, and economic security. Kenya has battled with this challenge since the early 1960s, when the Shona community, originating from Southern Africa, came to the country as missionaries. Many missed the deadline to obtain citizenship or were unable to register due to the post-independence constitution disallowing people not of Kenyan descent to be registered as citizens. In what is a progressive achievement…
Locked up and locked down: how persons in detention have been left behind during COVID-19
by Kerry Pearson, Universal Rights Group
While the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated global health disparities, the group that has arguably been impacted the most is persons in detention. As the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT), which supervises compliance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture[1], has pointed out, ‘persons deprived of their liberty comprise a particularly vulnerable group’. Nowhere has this been more prominent than during the pandemic. For one, hard-won progress in the reduction of COVID-19 cases in parts of the developed world has been a result of, inter alia, the quick rollout of vaccination campaigns as well as social distancing,…
latest policy report
The seventh Glion Human Rights Dialogue (Glion VII), organised by the Governments of Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and the Universal Rights Group (URG), in partnership with the…
previous policy reports
Building a coherent Human Rights Council-Security Council relationship - The prevention of human rights crises, violent conflict and atrocity crimes
In her first address to the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) Third Committee as High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2018, Michelle Bachelet urged States…#The time is now - The case for universal recognition of the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment
This new policy report tells the story of international discussions on human rights and environment, human rights and climate change, and the push for the right…OSLO+Digital – International support for the national implementation of UN human rights recommendations, including as a contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals during the COVID-19 pandemic
On 9 and 10 June 2020, the Permanent Missions of Denmark and The Netherlands to the UN in Geneva, in cooperation with the Universal Rights…URG next event
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31 Aug 2021
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31 Aug 2021
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31 Aug 2021
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29 Jul 2021
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05 Jul 2021
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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