The European Commission for Democracy through Law and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights opine that "restrictions on content of public assemblies should only occur if there is a real risk of violence."
According to a recent survey of 10,000 people in nine countries conducted by YouGov on behalf of Amnesty International, seven in ten people (73%) want governments to do more to regulate Big Tech, with a clear majority (71%) worried about how tech companies collect and use their personal data.
The regions of Indonesia that are governed by sharia law apply punishments that include public flogging for crimes of premarital and extramarital sex, exemplified in several recent cases where individuals were beaten unconscious in public cainings.
The aftermath of the recent terror attack on London Bridge by a supporter of al-Qaeda and IS has seen UK law enforcement and security officials emphasize that Islamist extremism remains the hegemonic security threat to Western and global stability.
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency ("SIDA") and the United Nations Development Programme ("UNDP") have entered a US $40 million partnership to help national capacities "to better manage ecosystems and biodiversity, improve water and ocean governance, and scale up climate action."
The United Nations International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) is considering a claim filed by Gambia on behalf of Muslim Rohingya alleging that Myanmar committed atrocities during a 2017 army crackdown, with Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi appearing in defense of Myanmar.
Following a judgment by the United Nations International Court of Justice, Iran's top judiciary has ordered the United States to pay up $130 billion in damages about a year after the United Nation's top court ruled that President Donald Trump's administration should ease sanctions against Tehran to ensure the continued flow of humanitarian goods.
Following the European Parliament's recent declaration of a climate emergency, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the Commission's plans to achieve climate neutrality in the EU by 2050, with leaders of the Parliament's political groups considering how the future "European Climate law" is funded and implemented in an economically and socially balanced way.
Recently, the United Nations Institute for Training and Research's ("UNITAR’s") Division for Multilateral Diplomacy delivered a two-day workshop entitled "Business and Human Rights," the purpose of which was to help the 60 participants from governments, business, civil society and other stakeholders "gain a thorough understanding of the Business and Human Rights agenda and provide leadership perspectives on the potential and challenges to implement the UN Guiding Principles as an essential means to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)."
Writing in GreenBiz Insights, Charlotte Erbsol and Vincent Gauthier explain how the United Nations Global Compact's report "Business Leadership Brief for Health Planet, Healthy People," highlights "three key insights that can help companies create effective and lasting solutions that address the health of people and planet."
In an Emerging Europe article, Thibault Muzergues, author of The Great Class Shift, describes the four “dominant” social classes that are now redefining Europe's political fault lines: Urban and Liberal Creatives, Suburban Middle Class, White Working Class and the Millennials, each of which can be identified with specific political movements.
In an op-ed in The Hill, Ilan Berman, Senior Vice-President of the American Foreign Policy Council, opines that NATO "is suffering from deep systemic dysfunctions," which may be exacerbated by the fact that the communique produced by the recent NATO London summit "spent precious little time discussing the real systemic problems now facing the world’s most important military bloc."
In a recent speech, Council of Europe Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić called on states from Europe and its neighboring regions to join the Council of Europe’s Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity (the "North-South Centre") to better tackle global challenges such as populism and radicalization, climate change, conflict and instability and resulting migrant flows.
Turkey's Foreign Minister used the 50th anniversary celebrations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) underway in Morocco to call for improved cooperation among "Muslim countries," with a priority of unity of the Islamic world and, towards that goal, reform of the OIC.
President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines announced the forthcoming lifting of martial law on the island of Mindanao after the national military's victory, facilitated by US and Australian intelligence support, in a two-year war against IS affiliated militants fighting to impose a local caliphate, but he cautioned that the longterm security threat from Islamist extremist groups to aiming to penetrate and expand into East Asia will require sustained military-intelligence vigilance.
The imposition of extensive, sharia-law restrictions on women's rights and freedoms imposed by the al-Qaeda-affiliated, and then, IS-affiliated, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in control of Syria's Idlib Province has led to women to resort to fake marriages with men across the border in Turkey, a path fraught with dangers of illegal border crossings, cash payments, and possible confinement by the new "spouse."
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