Human Rights

EU Summit Focuses on Implementing "Social Rights"

December 19, 2017

At a "Social Summit" in Sweden in November, leaders from EU member states and institutions discussed how to implement the bloc's Pillar of Social Rights in an effort to bolster, in large part, labor and employment rights of Europeans, with Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar stating that the goal of the Pillar is to move past the recent "excessive focus" on "economic matters."
EC Outlines Proposals for Common Migration Policy

December 14, 2017

The European Commission (EC) has outlined a series of proposals to enhance the EU policy on migration, including by reforming the Common European Asylum System, strengthening the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, and increasing the number of migrants legally accepted.
EU Promises Significant “Green” Investment in Neighboring Regions

December 14, 2017

EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete has announced the bloc’s plan to mobilize billions of euros in private and public investment toward climate-friendly objectives in Africa and EU Neighborhood countries as part of the EU External Investment Plan.
EU Agency Pushes "Societal" Change on Gender Attitudes

December 08, 2017

A paper from the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights places responsibility on EU member states to "change societal attitudes" to defeat "gender stereotyping" and reduce levels of "misogyny" and "hate speech" that fuel gender inequality.
NGO Supports ECtHR Complaint over Global Warming

December 04, 2017

The Guardian reports that the nongovernmental organization Global Legal Action Network is supporting an initiative of a group of Portuguese children to fund a complaint before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against 47 European countries over their alleged failure to limit the impacts of global warming and prevent its violation of their human rights.
UK Seeks to Satisfy ECtHR on Prisoner Voting

November 30, 2017

The BBC reports that the British Government is planning to extend the right to vote to convicted criminals serving less than a year in prison and out on day-release to satisfy a European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ruling against the UK's blanket ban on prisoner voting.
CoE Body: Irish Housing Breaches Social Charter

November 28, 2017

The Council of Europe's (CoE) Committee of Social Rights has found that Ireland has breached the legally binding European Social Charter by providing "substandard" social housing to indigent people in the country.
CoE Calls for Rights Upgrades in Switzerland

November 21, 2017

The Council of Europe's (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights Nils Muižnieks has called on Switzerland to loosen restrictions imposed on migrants under current asylum rules, including by eliminating administrative detention for migrant children over the age of 15, and expressed concerns regarding resources devote to the country's national human rights institution.
FRA: Poverty Is a Rights Violation

November 21, 2017

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) has warned EU member states that allowing people to live in poverty is a violation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and has called for governments to use the European Pillar of Social Rights as a "starting point" to address these rights violations in Europe.
NGO Opposes UK Human Rights Reform

November 15, 2017

Amnesty International has published a document calling on the UK to commit to retaining its Human Rights Act, which embeds the European Convention on Human Rights in Britain's legal system, warning that the "decoupling of the national human rights system from international standards" could weaken the protection of rights in the country.