Universal Declaration of Human Rights

• June 7, 2022

If there is a mantra for United States foreign policy under the Biden administration, it is the idea of a “rules-based international order.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a major speech delivered at the Asia Society on May 26 on US-China relations, cited the phrase or variations of it 16 times in his …

General Assembly, Security Council, US Foreign Relations, US-UN Relations, WORLDVIEWS

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WOMEN AS CHANGEMAKERS

An American Feminist, Honored by France, Carries On a Tireless Global Fight for Women’s Rights

Barbara Crossette

• October 6, 2021

Jessica Neuwirth, a pivotal force in promoting and supporting the rights of women and girls worldwide, was appointed to the rank of chevalier in the French Legion of Honor by the French government in a ceremony in New York City on Oct. 5. The citation said: “This high distinction expresses the gratitude of the …

Gender Violence, Human Rights, Women as Changemakers

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Pompeo’s New Agenda Targets the UN Rights Declaration

Barbara Crossette

• July 20, 2020

In an extraordinary report that defies reality, the Trump administration is extolling United States’ global leadership in human rights and accusing its critics of threatening democracy. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who created the US Commission on Unalienable Rights last year and ordered the report, introduced it on July 16 in Philadelphia, where the …

Human Rights, US Foreign Relations

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WORLDVIEWS

Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Dead?

Bertrand Ramcharan

• April 3, 2018

When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted 70 years ago, the hopes of its drafters and of people across the globe was that it would help transform the world into a place of freedom and justice. Sadly, the declaration is now being challenged as it has never been before. This leads to pondering …

WORLDVIEWS

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Thank You, UN, for Validating Indigenous People

Bertrand Ramcharan

• February 15, 2018

Indigenous people, several millions of them, live in more than 80 countries and have long suffered, and continue to suffer, from injustices. Until 1981, they had no global forum in which to appear to plead for justice and for respect of their inalienable rights. That year, the director of the United Nations Division of …

Human Rights, International Justice

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WORLDVIEWS

Has Anyone Seen the UN Secretary-General’s Human Rights Agenda?

Bertrand G. Ramcharan

• August 22, 2017

Secretary-General António Guterres has set about modernizing some sectors of the United Nations and made impassioned statements about the need to protect human rights. But beyond rhetoric, so far there has been no indication of his modernizing the human-rights sector. We have seen this before. Dag Hammarskjold, a previous secretary-general, undoubtedly believed in human …

Human Rights, Secretary-General, WORLDVIEWS

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BOOKS

The Secret Work on War-Crime Trials Before Nuremberg

Irwin Arieff

• May 13, 2017

It is widely believed that the Allied powers were in the dark about the “final solution” — the Nazi campaign to exterminate Europe’s Jews — until the discovery of the death camps, strewn with corpses and emaciated inmates, at the end of World War II. Yet Russia, Britain and the United States publicly declared …

BOOKS, Human Rights, International Justice

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You Have the Right to Leave Your Country: Backdrop to UN Summit on Migration

Joseph Chamie

• August 10, 2016

You have a right to leave your country, but you don’t have a right to enter another country. That asymmetry of human rights is a basic axiom of the global international migration system. Nearly 70 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in Article 13, recognized everyone’s right to leave and to return …

Human Rights, Migration, Refugees

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WORLDVIEWS

Haitian Letters Remind the UN of Cholera Victims’ Sadness

Nancy Young

• December 13, 2015

PORT-AU-PRINCE — Here in the office of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Haiti’s capital, more than 2,000 letters of cholera victims seeking justice came pouring in to be delivered on Dec. 10 to the headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping mission as part of a protest on Human Rights Day. It was a …

WORLDVIEWS

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Jan Eliasson Explains His Role as No. 2 at the UN

A. Edward Elmendorf

• January 19, 2014

Jan Eliasson has been the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations since July 2012, the second in command after Ban Ki-moon. Eliasson, 73, is a former Swedish foreign minister and was ambassador to the United States twice, among other foreign postings. He was also president of the UN General Assembly and a key UN …

Development, Peace and Security

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US Foes of Disability Treaty Reflect Discomfort With UN

Barbara Crossette

• December 13, 2012

In blocking adoption by the United States of a global convention to protect the disabled, the Republican right signaled on Dec. 4 that it intends to stall or kill all international treaties sent to the Senate for ratification by the Obama administration. Even pleas from a frail and crippled Bob Dole, a former senator, …

Human Rights, US-UN Relations

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Why the International Women’s Rights Treaty Matters

Anthony C. Gooch

• December 3, 2012

The time has come for the United States to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, commonly known as Cedaw, particularly after women voters asserted themselves so effectively in recent US elections. The convention obliges signatories to “ensure the full development and advancement of women” and expressly extends …