Human Rights

Michelle Bachelet of Chile Nominated to Be Next UN Rights Commissioner

August 8, 2018

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has nominated Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile, to become the next UN high commissioner for human rights. The nomination has been sent to the General Assembly for approval. Bachelet, who is 66, was Guterres’s top choice all along in the selection process, which began informally in the …

Human Rights, Secretary-General, Women

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GEOPOLITICS

Richard Falk on Palestine, Israel and the UN in the Trump Age

July 24, 2018

by Dulcie Leimbach

Richard Falk is a well-known American academic and writer who from 2008 until 2014 was the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Palestine since 1967, a post that invariably invites controversy. For Falk, who has never been shy of taking provocative stances, the work compelled him to declare, among other things, that …

Geopolitics, Human Rights, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Secretary-General, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

Once Again, Haley Accuses Others for US Failure at Rights Council Reform

July 22, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

In the middle of last week, when the Trump administration was still unable to say how it “lost” more than 2,500 children torn from their asylum-seeking parents at the border with Mexico, Nikki Haley, the United States envoy to the United Nations, was telling a different story to a sympathetic group in Washington, D.C. …

General Assembly, Human Rights, Nikki Haley Watch

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GEOPOLITICS

Pompeo’s Visit to the UN Caps a Week of Dizzying Global Politics

July 20, 2018

by Dulcie Leimbach

Capping a week of neck-wrenching U-turns by the president of the United States after his pro-Russia speech in Helsinki on Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with the 15-member United Nations Security Council in New York on July 20 — to discuss North Korea. Pompeo and Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the …

Geopolitics, Human Rights, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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UN to Rohingya: You Can’t Go Home Safely Any Time Soon

July 15, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

Among refugee advocates there has been a growing concern that recent agreements among regional governments and the United Nations on a framework for mitigating the Rohingya crisis could prompt at least some of the million-plus people who have fled the deadly military pogrom in Myanmar to consider risking a return to try to rebuild …

Asia, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Refugees

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P5 MONITOR

The Congo: Tiptoeing Toward a New War?

July 9, 2018

by Enrico Carisch

If President Joseph Kabila’s continued violations of his country’s constitutional term limits were not enough of a warning, the first paragraph of the latest report by United Nations experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo sets the record straight, saying: “Armed actors continuously used the delay in the electoral process to promote acts …

Africa, Human Rights, P5 Monitor, Security Council

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

No Winners in Washington’s Human-Rights Blame Game

July 3, 2018

by Irwin Arieff

It’s a poor workman who blames his tools, a popular French proverb cautions. But that’s just what Ambassador Nikki Haley has been doing in trying to justify Washington’s exit from the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council. Haley has looked long and hard in her scramble to identify the villains responsible for Washington’s exit. …

Human Rights, Nikki Haley Watch, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

The UN’s Report on Poverty in the US Is Rebuked by Nikki Haley

June 28, 2018

by Maria Luisa Gambale

When Philip Alston decided to focus a report on the United States, in his role as the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the goal was to spur a larger discussion. However, in the past week there has been a slow-motion volley of criticisms instead, as Nikki Haley, the US …

Human Rights, Nikki Haley Watch, Poverty, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

The UN Secretary-General’s Human-Rights Crisis Can Be Solved

June 26, 2018

by Bertrand Ramcharan

There is a crisis in the United Nations human-rights system. Secretary-General António Guterres can lead the way out of it. Indeed, the world continues to look to the UN secretary-general to stand up for the principles of the organization. One of the highest responsibilities of the incumbent is to help steer a course toward …

General Assembly, Human Rights, Secretary-General, WORLDVIEWS

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

As Expected, the US Quits the UN Human Rights Council

June 19, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

In a long-expected decision, the United States announced it was withdrawing from the United Nations Human Rights Council, the world body’s primary organ for promoting and protecting the rights of people worldwide. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, delivered comments on June 19 in the …

Human Rights, Nikki Haley Watch, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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With Trump’s Human-Rights Policies, Religious ‘Values’ Take Priority

June 7, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

For almost three centuries, through street protests, court battles and a civil war, the United States has sporadically but steadily advanced and expanded human-rights protections and commitments in domestic and foreign policies. Now Donald Trump and the most conservative, ideologically driven officials on his team want to turn back this record in fundamental ways, …

Gender-Based Violence, Health and Population, Human Rights, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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TOPIC: WOMEN

‘Don’t Try to Be a Superwoman’: An Interview With Michelle Bachelet

May 31, 2018

by Dulcie Leimbach

Michelle Bachelet ended her second term as president of Chile on March 11, 2018. Her first term, from 2006 to 2010, was marked by an ambitious social and economic agenda advancing women’s rights and better health care. Her cabinet of ministers, for example, was composed of an equal number of men and women, as …

Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights, Latin America, Women

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NIKKI HALEY WATCH

In Year 2 of Trump Presidency, the US Is Still Eroding Both the UN and Women’s Rights

May 21, 2018

by Barbara Crossette

After a year of bombast and threats by Ambassador Nikki Haley and the ever-evolving Donald Trump administration, the tone appears to be turned down a few notches in the second year of the Trump presidency. But efforts to undermine the United Nations and what it stands for have not stopped, at least for now, …

Human Rights, Humanitarian Aid, Middle East, Nikki Haley Watch, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

Thank You, United Nations, for Helping Victims of Nazi Experiments

May 17, 2018

by Bertrand Ramcharan

As World War II ended and the horrors of the Holocaust unfolded before a stunned humanity, the victims, their families and people of good will sought to construct a new world order of justice grounded in recognition of inalienable human rights. Prof. Hersch Lauterpacht made the case for an International Bill of Rights, the …

Human Rights, International Justice

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WORLDVIEWS

Prisoners’ Human Rights: A Seriously Forgotten Problem in Britain?

May 1, 2018

by Rhona Scullion

NOTTINGHAM, England — Prisoner rights are not a popular topic either in the hallowed halls of the British Parliament or in the public domain in Britain. Aside from the standard “tough on crime” approach that most governments adopt as a go-to populist policy, there is little if any attention paid to people in our …

Human Rights, Poverty, WORLDVIEWS

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Human Rights

Michelle Bachelet of Chile Nominated to Be Next UN Rights Commissioner

Richard Falk on Palestine, Israel and the UN in the Trump Age

Once Again, Haley Accuses Others for US Failure at Rights Council Reform

Pompeo’s Visit to the UN Caps a Week of Dizzying Global Politics

UN to Rohingya: You Can’t Go Home Safely Any Time Soon

The Congo: Tiptoeing Toward a New War?

No Winners in Washington’s Human-Rights Blame Game

The UN’s Report on Poverty in the US Is Rebuked by Nikki Haley

The UN Secretary-General’s Human-Rights Crisis Can Be Solved

As Expected, the US Quits the UN Human Rights Council

With Trump’s Human-Rights Policies, Religious ‘Values’ Take Priority

‘Don’t Try to Be a Superwoman’: An Interview With Michelle Bachelet

In Year 2 of Trump Presidency, the US Is Still Eroding Both the UN and Women’s Rights

Thank You, United Nations, for Helping Victims of Nazi Experiments

Prisoners’ Human Rights: A Seriously Forgotten Problem in Britain?

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