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BLUE SMOKE: A monthly column, from PassBlue and UNA–UK, spotlighting senior appointments at the UN

George Floyd

Advice for America’s Return to the Human Rights Council, Starting With the Issue of Racism

Opinion by Peter Splinter
• March 17, 2021

GENEVA — The United States’ decision to re-engage with the United Nations Human Rights Council, announced last month, has been welcomed in many quarters. The news offered a sense of the priorities the US would have in returning to…

Categories: Africa, Human Rights, OPINIONS, US-UN Relations

OPINIONS

Will the Human Rights Council’s Rare Steps to Combat Racism Make a Difference?

Opinion by Peter Splinter
• July 29, 2020

GENEVA — In early June, some family members of victims of police killings in the United States and more than 600 civil society organizations worldwide wrote to the United Nations Human Rights Council to request that it urgently hold a…

Categories: Human Rights, OPINIONS

COVID-19

The UN Must March for Justice and Racial Equality

Mona Ali Khalil
• June 9, 2020

As the world knows, George Floyd, a black man suspected of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a store in Minneapolis, Minn., was killed on May 25 by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer. Chauvin had pressed his knee…

Categories: Covid-19, Human Rights, Secretary-General

COVID-19

As Protests Sweep the US, the UN Tweets Platitudes

Dulcie Leimbach
• June 3, 2020

In New York City, protesters swarm the roadway portion of the Brooklyn Bridge, heading from the City Hall area of lower Manhattan into Brooklyn. The crowd stopped incoming traffic, but there was no violence, May 30, 2020. JOHN PENNEY…