As UN inspectors finally began their search for evidence of chemical weapons being used in Syria, on Wednesday Damascus apparently suffered the worst attack of this kind yet in this conflict. Some reports…
Kevin Rudd reportedly plans to revisit the UN’s Refugee Convention as the numbers of asylum seekers arriving by boat continue daily.
EPA/Tubagus
Prime minister Kevin Rudd has indicated that he would like to revisit Australia’s obligations under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. We are yet to learn what this may mean…
Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai met with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at UN headquarters in New York to call for freedom for education for children globally.
EPA/Justin Lane
Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, now recovered from serious injuries after the Taliban shot her last year, delivered a defiant speech to the United Nations General Assembly over the weekend. She called…
The Catholic Church has been reticent about its investigations into child abuse.
John Shore
Last week the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) asked the Vatican to disclose details of child sexual abuse cases involving Catholic clergy for the period November 1995 to January 2014. According…
Lethal force: will more weapons increase the chance of a peaceful solution in Syria?
Freedom House via Creative Commons
With the UK and France free of their EU obligations to refrain from providing lethal assistance to the rebels and the US now deciding that the time has come strategically and politically to do so, all…
Australia should use its new power on the UN Security Council to make sure women are high on the UN agenda.
UNIFEM
Australia has always taken a lead role in international security debates at the United Nations. In Canberra, representatives from civil society organisations will meet with the government to discuss Australia’s…
The world’s getting more crowded - how do we all get what we need while protecting the environment?
James Cridland
Global population trajectories put us at nine billion people by 2050. Our demand for natural resources, particularly water, food and energy, will only rise in the coming decades. With this in mind, how…
The approval of the first global arms treaty by the UN may be more a case of misplaced enthusiasm than cause for real celebration.
EPA/Inter Services Public Relations
The United Nations on Tuesday approved the first treaty on the global arms trade which would regulate a business that amounts to over US$70 billion. There were 154 nations in favour, three against and…
Rwandan warlord Bosco Ntaganda has handed himself into the International Criminal Court. What implications does this have for future cases?
AAP/Peter Dejong
On the morning of the 18th of March, Bosco “The Terminator” Ntaganda presented himself at the US Embassy in Kigali, Rwanda, and requested that he be handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC…
We were delighted to be elected to the security council, now we must make the most of our tenure.
AAP/Andrew Gombert
Now that Australia has taken its seat on the UN Security Council, it is worth considering how we might make a difference. Former diplomat Bruce Haig has recently dismissed Australia’s new role as chair…
Boycotting the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is not Anti-Semitic; it’s a recognition of violations of international law.
Flickr/delayed gratification
The last weeks of 2012 saw a great amount of criticism levelled at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University and its director Jake Lynch following their boycott of an exchange program…
Governments should be careful to protect human rights when contracting with businesses, such as health services in immigration detention.
Department of Immigration & Citizenship
Last week, the UN held its first-ever business and human rights forum in Geneva. It’s part of a growing awareness that multinationals have a big impact on human rights. Opening the forum, the UN’s human…
Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian delegation applaud after the vote on a resolution to upgrade Palestine’s status in the UN.
EPA/Andrew Gombert
The road of history is a pot-holed one. But that doesn’t mean, despite the crashes and stutters, that we don’t eventually get past them. The UN vote over upgrading the Palestinians to non-member observer…
Australia has won a seat at the table; but how much is it actually worth?
EPA/Andrew Gombert
It took a herculean effort, a lot of lobbying and much cash, but Australia has now, with a certain degree of surprise, netted a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council for two years, starting in…
With its natural beauty, Rio provided the ideal backdrop for the earth summit.
Anna Magal
Rio provided the ideal backdrop for the Rio+20 “earth summit” – with the jungle at its backdoor, nestled among magnificent jagged mountaintops, bordered by kilometres of white sandy Atlantic beaches, and…
Huge conferences with thousands of participants aren’t getting us anywhere.
Nic Bothma/EPA
Global sustainability conferences no longer fulfil a useful purpose, considering the existing dense institutional framework. We know what the problems are and need no further agenda setting. We need action…
We need to take a better look at the role women can play in the Millenium Devlopment Goals.
AAP/EPA/Harish Tyagi
Mel Dunn, The University of Queensland and Danielle Logue, University of Technology Sydney
In part 11 of the multi-disciplinary Millennium Project series, Danielle Logue and Mel Dunn note the striking absence of male voices in discussions of women’s empowerment, despite it being fundamental…
Big, ambitious strides aren’t the way to escape from this mess.
EPA/Zsolt Szigetvary
Yesterday, Nick Rowley looked at the history of sustainability agreements and why we’ve reached the impasse of Rio+20. Today he suggests a different approach. Back in November 2005, your perspective on…
The Rio Earth Summit approach to saving the planet is looking pretty old-fashioned.
United Nations Photos
Twenty years ago in a clamour of global public and media interest, representatives of all UN member states gathered in Rio de Janeiro to take part in the first Earth Summit. Later this week, the Rio+20…
How bad do things have to get before we want to seriously address environmental issues?
AAP
The fifth edition of the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5) - a global environmental report card by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - reads like the results for a sedentary, middle-aged…