A list of opportunities for human rights under the next US administration

by Yoni Ish-Hurwitz, Executive Director, Human Rights Likeminded Office Blog, Blog, By invitation

Starting 20 January, when US President-elect Joe Biden takes office, so much can change for human rights at the United Nations. The US, which is the largest contributor to the UN budget by far, will have the power to move mountains if President-elect Biden delivers on his plan to restore US leadership on the global stage . His transition team has been preparing for months. He sees four crucial …

Human Rights: New challenges – firm commitments and beliefs

by Ambassador Walter STEVENS, Permanent Observer, EU Delegation to the UN in Geneva Uncategorized

A year ago, at a Human Rights Day event in Geneva, I met two very impressive sisters, Amy and Ella Meek, 14 and 16 years old respectively. These two young climate activists go to the barricades against plastic pollution. I also met Memory Banda, a young campaigner against child marriage from Malawi and Hamangai Pataxo, an indigenous rights defender from …

UK education scandal has made explicit what has long been implicit: children’s equal right to a quality education is systematically violated in the UK

by Marc Limon, Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group Blog, Blog

One of the most entertaining exposés of the recent scandal in the UK around A-Level (for 18 year olds) and GCSE results (for 16 year olds), and in particular the automatic, computer-generated (via an algorithm) downgrading of kids from State schools in poorer parts of the country, was undoubtedly provided by James O’Brien of LBC radio. Speaking on 14 August, he explained …

Putting people at the heart of the human rights treaty body system

by Ashley Bowe, Senior Human Rights Advisor, SPC RRRT and Joshua Cooper, Lecturer, University of Hawai’i, National Universal Periodic Review Task Force Co-Chair, US Human Rights Network Blog, Blog, By invitation, International human rights institutions, mechanisms and processes

Samoa held a ground-breaking treaty body session on child rights, evidencing the benefits of extending these sessions beyond Geneva. Calls for treaty body committees to undertake their sessions  on the ground have been made for decades. The first ever such session recently took place in the Pacific, providing empirical evidence of the significant opportunities and slight obstacles of this practice. The genesis of this session can be traced back …