NGO Watch®

Robinson: Retain Human Rights in UN Climate Deal

December 09, 2015

Despite warnings from US and other officials that including such rights would fuel climate-based litigation, former Irish President and activist Mary Robinson calls for countries negotiating a UN agreement on climate change to include in the "legally binding" section of the deal a link between global warming and human rights.
AI: US Must Heed UN on Cuba Embargo

December 02, 2015

Amnesty International ("AI") has called for the US to heed the recent vote of the UN General Assembly to condemn the country's economic embargo of Cuba, which it says "greatly contributes to further undermine human rights in Cuba," and end the policy.
HRW Expresses Concern at UN Terrorism Resolution

December 02, 2015

An article from Human Rights Watch ("HRW") calls on the UN Security Council to address what HRW deems to be problems with its recent resolution requiring countries to enact various criminal sanctions against foreign terrorist fighters, arguing that the resolution may encourage the adoption of overbroad criminal provisions with negative consequences.
NGOs Criticize Non-Human Rights Approach in SDGs

October 28, 2015

A group of nongovernmental organizations recently criticized the development process for the UN Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs"), a set of economic, social, and environmental targets to be achieved by 2030, for failing to classify many of the targets as "human rights" and for not setting out a "minimum floor of socioeconomic well-being for all."
HRW: Human Rights in Kenya Are at Stake in Climate Talks

October 28, 2015

Human Rights Watch ("HRW") warns that climate change is threatening the human rights of the indigenous peoples of the Turkana region in northwest Kenya through droughts and weather change and that dealing with such threats is an "international priority," including at negotiating sessions over a global climate deal in 2015.
NGOs: UK's Lack of Housing Violates Human Rights

October 27, 2015

A group of nongovernmental organizations has submitted a report to the UN Economic and Social Council accusing the UK of breaching its international human rights obligations by failing to provide affordable housing to people in Britain.
NGO Calls for More NHRI Participation at UN

October 14, 2015

The International Service for Human Rights has called on countries to support broader participation by National Human Rights Institutions ("NHRIs"), which seek to implement the global human-rights agenda at the national level, at the UN General Assembly and other UN institutions.
NGO Meeting Pushes Comprehensive SDG Agenda

September 24, 2015

Laura Turner Seydel, daughter of media mogul Ted Turner, recounts a recent conference at the UN in which nongovernmental organizations praised their past and future role in the advancement of the international organization's Sustainable Development Goals ("SDGs"), which she says will "transform the fate of humanity."
NGO Seeks Monitoring as Path to Global Governance

September 21, 2015

Chief Executive of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz writes that global governance on the issues of climate change, trade, and "sustainable development" depend on global monitoring, policy-setting, and pressure toward implementation of these agendas at the national level.
NGO Pushes Integration of Human Rights in UN Climate Talks

September 15, 2015

Executive Director of the Universal Rights Group Marc Limon has published an article on a website run by the World Economic Forum calling for countries to integrate the global human rights agenda in their negotiations over an agreement on countering climate change to be discussed at a UN conference in Paris in December.