The United Nations General Assembly will host its first UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (the Summit) on Monday September 19, 2016 at the UN Headquarters in New York to address one of the greatest current global challenges: the millions of refugees and migrants on the move. [UN News Centre] The Summit will bring together heads of state and government officials,
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Migrants and Refugees Amnesty International reported that tens of thousands of refugees have been cut off from humanitarian aid for the last two months in an area between Syria and Jordan. [Al Jazeera] The hunger strike of a former Guantanamo detainee currently residing in Uruguay as a refugee prompted a judge this week to order a medical evaluation. [Washington Post]
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Migrants and Refugees The United Nations Children’s Fund released a report on refugee and migrant children around the world, finding that over 28 million children have migrated in an effort to leave violence and insecurity. [UN News Centre] Locals in Calais, France gathered to protest the migrant camp in the town where over 7,000 people live. [BBC] Civil Society The
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Civil Society United Nations human rights experts showed concern for the harassment, detention, and torture of six human rights activists in Sudan who now may also face the death penalty. [OHCHR Press Release] With tens of millions of workers on strike in India, 150 million people were involved in protests on Friday. [Guardian] Girls at a high school in Pretoria,
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During the month of September 2016, several supranational bodies will review States’ implementation of their treaty obligations, regional judicial bodies will conduct hearings, and four UN special procedures mechanisms will conduct country visits. Four United Nations treaty bodies will hold interactive dialogues with more than 20 States regarding their implementation of treaty obligations related to economic, social, and cultural rights and
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Civil Society A member of the United Democratic Party, an opposition political party in Gambia, died while in detention last Saturday, prompting the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to condemn the death and conditions of detention. [UN News Centre] The Ethiopian government announced this week that it will not prosecute the Olympic athlete who publically
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On August 2, 2016 United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, published the first biennial report on efforts to strengthen the UN treaty bodies, as part of an ongoing process to harmonize working methods, improve State compliance, and ensure adequate resources for these independent human rights monitoring bodies. [OHCHR Press Release; IJRC] The report covers the implementation of General Assembly Resolution 68/268,
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Civil Society Ahead of a constitutional referendum scheduled for September, Azerbaijani authorities have arrested several activists critical of the government within the last week. [RSF] In order to make room for civil society members arrested after the coup, Turkey announced that it will release inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses from its prisons. [NYT] Following the recent re-election of Zambia’s president,
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The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recently published a report on the upswing in civilian casualties in the first six months of 2016. [UNAMA Press Release] More than 5,000 civilians were killed or maimed, the highest number of such casualties in Afghanistan in a six-month period since 2009 and one that includes significant numbers of women and children.
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The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) published on August 1, 2016 its annual report on activities and progress for the period of July 2015 to July 2016, marking the first time an AICHR annual report was made public on its website. [AICHR Press Release] The AICHR, a regional human rights body founded in 2009 under the auspices of
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