Human Rights Council Addresses Discrimination, Conflict, and Children

From March 2 to 27, the United Nations Human Rights Council is holding its 28th regular session in Geneva, Switzerland. The agenda includes high-level panel discussions, interactive dialogues with special procedures, debates on racial discrimination and on the rights of persons with disabilities, and the consideration of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) outcomes. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner

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The U.S. appears before the Committee Against Torture

Human Rights Experts Call for Prosecution, Reparations in Wake of U.S. Torture Report

On Tuesday, December 9, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Intelligence Committee) published a report detailing the “abuses and countless mistakes” of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) detention and interrogation program in the years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. See Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program:

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The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reviews the United States

Human Rights Bodies Respond to Killings by Police in U.S.

Recent decisions by two grand juries in the United States not to indict white police officers for the shooting deaths of two black men, Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Missouri, have sparked “legitimate concerns” about American police practices among United Nations human rights experts. [UN News Centre] The deaths of Garner and Brown in separate incidents

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IACHR to Assist Mexico in Investigating 43 Students’ Disappearance

In response to the disappearance of 43 student protesters in the Mexican state of Guerrero, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) has signed a tripartite agreement with the government of Mexico and a group of nongovernmental organizations representing the student victims and their families to provide technical assistance with the search for the students, the investigation and subsequent actions

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International Day Recognizes Rising Violence against Journalists

November 2, 2014 marked the first International Day to End Impunity for Crimes against Journalists, established by the United Nations General Assembly to draw attention to “attacks and violence against journalists,” which it unequivocally condemned. See UN General Assembly, Resolution 68/163, The safety of journalists and the issue of impunity, UN Doc. A/RES/68/163, 18 December 2013, para. 2. The General

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As Blackwater Security Guards Are Convicted for Nisour Square Killings, UN Working Group Pushes for Enhanced Regulation of Private Security Companies

On October 22, jurors in a United States federal district court found four former Blackwater security guards guilty of first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter for the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis on September 16, 2007. The killings occurred while a team of security guards – code-named Raven 23 – employed by the private security company escorted a U.S. State Department

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Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, Minister of Human Rights for Iraq during the special session on Iraq of the Human Rights Council. Credit: UN Photo / Jean-Marc Ferré

UN Human Rights Council Requests Investigation into Islamic State’s Human Rights Abuses in Iraq

The United Nations Human Rights Council held its 22nd special session this week to address human rights violations committed by the Islamic State and associated groups, which have been accused of mass atrocities as they move to take territory and eliminate minority groups in Iraq and neighboring countries. [OHCHR; Amnesty] The UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution  requesting the

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Remembrance, Truth and Justice.Credit: Lisa Reinsberg

On 4th International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, Advocacy and Monitoring Continue on Behalf of Victims and Families

On August 30th, the international community will commemorate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, honoring those who have been forcibly disappeared, while encouraging States to cease this practice and remedy the damage it has caused. Enforced disappearance is defined as arrest, detention, abduction, or other deprivation of a person’s liberty by agents of the State, combined with

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