On July 5, the Daily Mail mounted yet another attack on the pesky human rights folk who have the temerity to question the coalition government’s welfare agenda. The article, headlined “The Brazil Nut strikes…
The United Nations Human Rights Council is tasked with the universal protection and promotion of human rights, and is the UN’s principal human rights body. Yet it is being used by known rights abusers…
Could politicians and scientists in the future be charged with “climate negligence”?
Julie G/Flickr
Society generally has a clear idea of what constitutes a crime, and those in positions of power are usually held to very high standards. Politicians charged with making decisions on the needs of society…
The judicial and political options in Egypt for appealing Peter Greste’s jail sentence do not appear to give much hope to his supporters.
EPA/Khaled Elfiqi
The guilty verdict and jail sentence handed to Australian journalist Peter Greste and his Al Jazeera English colleagues Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed by an Egyptian court for conspiring with the Muslim…
The plight of women and girls facing sexual violence in Syria, for example, does not elicit global diplomatic outrage – yet.
EPA/Tolga Bozoglu
The Global Summit To End Sexual Violence in Conflict is underway in London. It is an extraordinary manifestation of UK soft power, the influence of global social movements, celebrity diplomacy and digital…
The passing of a decade has not dulled the sense of outrage at the UK involvement in the Iraq War, and the news that the Iraq Inquiry can only publish the “gist” of Tony Blair’s talks with George Bush…
The UN has singled out Iran for discrimination against women, so why is it elected to the main UN body dedicated to gender equality?
EPA/Stefan Zaklin
In March, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported to the General Assembly on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Ban expressed concern that women in Iran “are subject to discrimination…
The national obsession: But do we make the most of it?
Alasdair Middleton
After the Scottish National Party had a bad result at the 1992 general election, deputy leader Jim Sillars famously accused the Scots of being “90-minute patriots”. His point, to paraphrase wildly, was…
Individuals and private companies are major players in nuclear proliferation.
EPA/Yonhap
This week marks the tenth anniversary of the the United Nations Security Council adopting resolution 1540. The resolution – an important, but perhaps underappreciated, element of the non-proliferation…
Global shipping is expected to triple by 2060.
Let Ideas Compete/Flickr
The high seas cover about 50% of Earth’s surface and host a major share of the world’s biodiversity, but remain largely ungoverned. With increasing threats to open ocean ecosystems, now more than ever…
IPCC leaders release their climate mitigation report in Berlin - but governments already have one eye on next year’s UN climate summit.
EPA/Joerg Carstensen
In the wake of this month’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on ways to cut global greenhouse gas emissions, accusations began to fly in the media that the report had been censored…
It’s 100 million years since Pangea, and we’re still waiting.
cleanbiz.asia/Cesar Herada
It seems an anomaly that among the 15 autonomous, specialised agencies within the United Nations – such as the FAO, WMO, WHO, or UNESCO – there is no dedicated environmental organisation. This secondary…
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has released a report on the human rights situation in Ukraine. It outlines the main areas of concern and needs for action, and sets out a framework…
No vote: despite activists’ urgings, the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks were stymied by the threat of veto.
EPA/HENNING BAGGER/AAP
Anyone who has watched in frustration as the United Nations repeatedly failed to secure a meaningful climate treaty could be forgiven for taking a rather glum view on this weekend’s report by the Intergovernmental…
Will the global community definitively stigmatise Russia as an international pariah until it renounces the use of force to challenge a UN member’s territorial integrity?
EPA/Alexey Nikolsky
The international community has been impotent since Russia responded to the November 2013 Ukraine crisis with force, culminating in annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea this month. The G7’s…
At a crossroads but what about junk food and booze?
J. Stephen Conn
It is ironic how slowly the world is switching on to the threat of non-communicable diseases. NCDs such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes are traditionally seen as diseases of gluttony or ignorance…
The Syrian civil war has left millions displaced and seeking refuge in neighbouring countries, often in camps in a dire condition.
EPA
On Saturday, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution that demands access for humanitarian aid organisations in Syria. This is an important step forward. It follows a Presidential…
The blame game about child abuse in the Catholic Church continues. While the Vatican are to give due consideration to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s demand to remove offenders and hand them…
Children in Australia will not be among those allowed to bring complaints of rights abuses by governments to the UN.
AAP/Lukas Coch
For the first time, children will soon be able to bring complaints of human rights violations to the United Nations. Although the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child has been in operation since…
The UN has criticised Australia’s housing and transfer of asylum seeker children in offshore processing facilities on Manus Island and Nauru.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
Recent reports that three asylum seeker children have been transferred from Nauru back to Australia because of concerns about their health raises a more fundamental question that lies at the heart of Australia’s…