UN Treaty Watch

UN Observer Criticizes Brazilian Commemoration Plans

April 26, 2019

UN human rights mandate holder Fabián Salvioli has called on the Brazilian government not to proceed with plans to commemorate the anniversary of a military coup in 1964, raising questions regarding the UN human rights apparatus’s proper role in opining on domestic political considerations.
UN Agent Seeks Rights Review of Debt Repayment in Mozambique

April 26, 2019

The UN’s Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky has asserted that Mozambique’s sovereign debt threatens “economic, social and cultural rights” in the country, particularly in the wake of the impacts of Cyclone Idai, arguing that the concept of debt sustainability must include human rights considerations.
UN Treaty Bodies Advance Climate Change Agenda

April 24, 2019

Two environmental activist organizations have produced a report documenting a rise in UN human rights treaty body recommendations related to climate change, showing the success of efforts by NGOs to link the global environmental agenda to “economic, social, and cultural rights.”
UN Agents: Extradition of Assange to US Threatens Human Rights

April 15, 2019

Multiple UN human rights mandate holders have warned that the UK's detention of Julian Assange and planned extradition to the US on a conspiracy charge expose the Wikileaks founder to "serious human rights violations," including of his rights to life, a fair trial, and against torture.
UN Rights Observer Criticizes Israel on Resource Use, Environment

April 04, 2019

UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian rights Michael Lynk has issued a report accusing the Israeli government of plundering the natural resources of the Palestinian people and failing to protect the environment in “occupied” territory in violation of Palestinian rights to development and to a healthy environment.
UN Group Seeks “Gender-Sensitive” Policies on Illegal Drugs

April 04, 2019

In an example by UN human rights mandate holders of encouraging distinct treatment of men and women in a broad swath of government policies around the globe, the UN Working Group on discrimination against women called on authorities to address “structural inequality and discrimination” against women in their enforcement of drug laws.
UN Body Finds Italy Breached Woman’s Reproductive Rights

April 03, 2019

The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights has concluded that Italy violated the rights to “sexual and reproductive health” and to gender equality of a woman required under law to accept the transfer into her uterus, as part of a fertility treatment, an embryo with a low chance of viability.
UN Body: War on Drugs Is “System of Racial Control”

March 20, 2019

In the run-up to a UN meeting on global narcotics policy, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent has condemned the global war on drugs as disproportionately targeting people of African heritage, characterizing anti-drug policies “as a system of racial control.”
Columnist Calls for Global Curtailment of Property Rights

March 18, 2019

George Monbiot of The Guardian, lamenting the connection between labor and private property that is at the heart of the capitalist system and the current paradigm of global property rights, argues that the Universal Declaration on Human Rights should be amended to limit property rights for the benefit of future generations.
UN Body Demands UK Action on Abortion in Northern Ireland

March 14, 2019

Irish Legal News reports that the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women has reiterated objections to Northern Ireland’s abortion restrictions and has called on UK authorities to force the country to decriminalize access to abortion in compliance with its “international human rights obligations.”