NGO Watch®

Watchdog Calls for More Scrutiny of "Rights" NGOs

March 09, 2018

Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor writes that the scandal engulfing the nonprofit aid and activist organization Oxfam, which is facing allegations that it covered up years of sexual abuse by a key member of its staff, shows the need for third-party scrutiny of such organizations, even when they claim to be advancing the global "human rights" agenda.
NGO Develops Lesson Plan Linking SDGs, Rights

March 08, 2018

Amnesty International has launched a lesson plan aimed at teaching students around the world about how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must be linked with the global human rights agenda - including nontraditional economic, social, and cultural rights - as part of a UN initiative charged with designing school curricula on the SDGs.
NGO Seeks Censure of Hungary by UN Rights Body

February 13, 2018

The nongovernmental organization (NGO) Open Society Foundations has submitted a review of Hungarian restrictions on NGOs to the UN Human Rights Committee in an attempt to elicit a statement from the body censuring Hungary in its review of the country's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
NGO: Guantanamo Bay Order Violates International Law

February 08, 2018

Amnesty International has published a report asserting that US President Donald Trump's executive order reversing plans to close the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay and preparing for prisoner transfers to the facility violates US obligations under international human rights law.
ICRC Reviews Use of "Autonomous" Weapons Systems

February 08, 2018

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has published a paper reviewing the application of international humanitarian law to the use of so-called "autonomous" weapons systems and indicating some level of human control over the targeting and attacking process is necessary to comply with global rules of warfare.
Article: US Must Take Global Perspective on AI

February 07, 2018

Kyle Evanoff and Megan Roberts of the Council on Foreign Relations argue that the US Congress must provide for an "international approach" to the regulation and development of artificial intelligence (AI), eschewing principles of "economic nationalism" in account for the transnational scope of the potential benefits and risks of this technology.
NGO Warns of Global Backsliding on Rights Agenda

February 05, 2018

The 2018 Rule of Law Index from the nongovernmental organization World Justice Project purports to show that nearly two-thirds of the 113 countries around the world examined for the report have experienced a diminution in respect for fundamental human rights amid a rise in "authoritarian nationalism" and a "general retreat from international legal obligations."
Article: Transform Global Governance Through SDGs

January 30, 2018

An article from the nongovernmental organization Transnational Institute suggests that the actual achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is less important than using the process of working toward the SDGs as an opportunity to "lay foundations for alternative modes" of global governance based on "social and environmental justice."
NGO Criticizes EU on Rights Protection

January 24, 2018

As part of its 643-page review of human rights practices in countries around the world, Human Rights Watch warned that EU institutions and the bloc's member states are treating the global human rights agenda as an "optional extra" in areas like migration and combating terrorism, paving the way for the rise of "anti-rights governments."
Academic Seeks More Flexible Methods of Rights Enforcement

January 22, 2018

Professor Alexander Betts of the University of Oxford argues that the UN system has become "toothless" in an increasingly "illiberal" world and that civil society and governments must invent new, "adaptive" ways to bypass the traditional methods of human rights blaming-and-shaming to hold countries to account for their abuses.