United Nations

UN Agent Criticizes Liberia for Privatizing Education

April 04, 2016

UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education Kishore Singh has criticized the Government of Liberia's decision to contract with a private company to provide primary and pre-primary education to its citizens, labeling the move a "blatant violation" of the country's international obligations on education and calling instead for more funding of the public education system.
UN Agent: EU Is "Abandoning" Obligations on Rights of Migrants

April 01, 2016

After the negotiation of an agreement on the return of migrants from the EU to Turkey, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants François Crépeau called for EU countries, instead of returning migrants, to create "regular, safe and cheap mobility solutions" through which migrants could enter the bloc and called on the EU to impose a mandatory relocation system.
EU Committee Head Calls for Binding Targets on UN Urban Agenda

April 01, 2016

Praising the upcoming release of the EU's own Urban Agenda, President of the European Committee on the Regions Markku Markkula has called for the UN New Urban Agenda, which pushes the international organization's "sustainable development" objectives in urban areas, to be "transparent, participatory and based on binding objectives."
US Charges Nonprofit Employee in UN Corruption Scheme

April 01, 2016

AP reports that US prosecutors have charged an officer at a humanitarian organization for laundering money through the organization's accounts from China through the US to pay for a diplomatic post for her husband in a scheme hatched by former UN General Assembly President John Ashe and UN ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda Francis Lorenzo.
Former UN Official Seeks Comprehensive Reforms

March 31, 2016

Arguing that in spite of its positive aspirations the UN is mired in bureaucracy and incompetence, former UN Assistant Secretary General Anthony Banbury has called for substantial reforms in the international organization's infrastructure, including shielding budget allocation decisions from politics and appointing an external panel to review the UN's personnel system.
UN Report Forces Logging Policy Shift in Tasmania

March 31, 2016

While arguing that the review of conditions in a Tasmanian region designated as a World Heritage Area ("WHA") by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") contained "critical mistakes," the Tasmanian Government has accepted a UNESCO report calling for a ban on logging of special timber in the WHA and "strict conditions" on tourism development.
UN Head Seeks Greater Impact from HRC

March 31, 2016

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recently called on the UN Human Rights Council ("HRC") to increase its on-the-ground impact on human rights around the world and to do more to advance the link between the UN's human rights and "sustainable development" agendas.
UN Rights Chief Calls for More "Humane" EU Migrant Policy

March 31, 2016

In recent remarks to the UN Human Rights Council, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has called for European countries to implement "a much more rights-compliant and humane" policy on migrants that opens avenues for greater legal immigration by people from the Middle East.
Schaefer, Groves: US Must De-fund UN Climate Agency

March 30, 2016

Brett Schaefer and Steven Groves of the Heritage Foundation write that, following the accession of the Palestinian Authority to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change ("UNFCCC"), the US is legally obligated to cut off funding to the UNFCCC and possibly to UN's Green Climate Fund, a UNFCCC mechanism that finances projects seeking to limit the effects of global warming.
UNESCO Chief Highlights Education as Vehicle for "Sustainability"

March 30, 2016

As part of a recent panel on "education as global public good," the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO"), Irina Bokova, asserted that the importance of education lies in part in advancing the UN agendas on climate change and sustainability among students around the world.