1) Define your objectives realistically Why? As with any form of advocacy, the first step for engaging with the Human Rights Council is to clearly define your objectives based on realistic expectations of what is achievable. Advocates should recognize that the Council seeks to promote respect for human rights primarily through political dialogue. The Council holds no mandate to decide
Read moreLast week the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) debated a key concern of its subsidiary NGO Committee’s work to review and recommend NGO applications for ECOSOC consultative status. According to the UN Department of Public Information, Cyprus speaking on behalf of the European Union highlighted concerns that: over the past few years, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations continued
Read moreLast Friday, prominent human rights defender Nabeel Rajab, head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, was hospitalized after being beaten by security forces in the capital city of Manama following a large demonstration. [BCHR; Washington Post] Mr. Rajab believed the security forces to be nationals of Bahrain and of other Middle Eastern and South Asian nations. [For more on
Read moreOn December 7, IJRC hosted Boston Human Rights Night, bringing together the legal, academic and social just communities to learn about one another’s work and discuss the relevance of international law and mechanisms to their advocacy efforts. Panelists Gabor Rona (Human Rights First), Martha Davis (Program on Human Rights and the Global Economy), Christy Fujio (Physicians for Human Rights), John
Read moreIJRC advisors Katrina Anderson and James Ross, together with Jamil Dakwar, member of the IJRC Board of Directors, share their thoughts on the relevance of international law to human rights advocacy in the United States.
Read moreAdam Nord contributes this post illustrating and reflecting on the growing prominence of South Africa and its developing civil society in international legal affairs of significance for the entire globe. In his position as Lobbying and Engagement Manager at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, based in Johannesburg, Adam plays an active role in influencing high-level decision makers with local
Read moreOn Thursday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will hold hearings on a range of human rights topics and cases. Hearings to be held in the Padilha Vidal Room (webcast here) will address: various topics concerning Colombia (violence against women, peasant land control, labor unions, and the general human rights situation), rights to territory and self-governance of the indigenous peoples in
Read moreIn the wake of the killing of Al-Qaida militant and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki in late September by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen, many have questioned the Obama Administration’s legal justification for killing U.S. citizens and others outside combat zones, as discussed by IJRC Board member Jamil Dakwar in “State Sanctioned Killings”, published in the ezine Jadaliyya last Friday.
Read moreSixteen United Nations Member States face the Universal Periodic Review of their human rights records in October of this year, among them Syria, Zimbabwe, East Timor, Uganda and Venezuela. Other countries to go before the UPR in October are: Tajikistan, Tanzania, Antigua and Barbuda, Swaziland, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Togo, Iceland, Lithuania, and Moldova. Some States’ national reports are already
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