United Nations

UN Agent: Homelessness Is a Human Rights Violation

March 09, 2016

Blaming homelessness on factors including "persistent inequality" and the "unfair distribution of land and property," UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing Leilani Farha has called on countries to stop treating housing as a "commodity" and instead to treat it as a human right.
UN Rights Chief Calls on States to Reduce Economic Inequality

March 04, 2016

Calling the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights an "International Bill of Rights," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein called for wider implementation of these instruments to reduce "deepening" economic inequality.
UN Sets up Migrant "Hubs" in Europe

March 04, 2016

The UN High Commissioner on Refugees and the UN Children's Fund are cooperating to open approximately twenty Child and Family Support Hubs in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Serbia, and Slovenia to identify and support "vulnerable families" and children making the journey to Western Europe.
UN Meeting Seeks Sustainability Through "Ocean Governance"

March 04, 2016

At a meeting in Flanders organized by the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO"), government and other representatives discussed how governance of coastal and marine areas could contribute to the advancement of the UN's sustainability agenda.
UN Chief Calls for Open Borders for Migrants in Balkans

March 03, 2016

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has indicated that international law requires that countries along the "Balkan land route" between Greece and Western Europe keep borders open to migrants from the Middle East and "expand legal pathways" to accessing asylum.
UN Plans Convention on "Higher Education Qualifications"

March 03, 2016

The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization ("UNESCO") has announced plans to convene a committee to develop a Global Convention on the Recognition of Higher Education Qualifications to "improve academic mobility" and further global cooperation on issues related to higher education.
UNOHCHR Criticizes Countries for Shutting off Migrant Routes

March 02, 2016

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ("UNOHCHR") has criticized an agreement among police forces in Austria, Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia to limit the entry provide for the removal of migrants from North Africa and the Middle East as potential violations of international human rights and refugee law.
UN Mandate Holders Seek Sweeping Guantanamo Investigation

March 02, 2016

Following the Obama Administration's proposal of a plan to close the US's Guantanamo Bay detainment facility, a group of UN human rights mandate holders called for a broader pronouncement that would provide for the investigation and prosecution of all those alleged to have committed human rights violations at the facility.
US Congress Hearing Implicates UN Agency Chief in Scandals

March 02, 2016

At a hearing of a subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, witnesses accused the head of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization ("WIPO") of scandals ranging from providing computer equipment to North Korea to cracking down on whistleblowers and called for the US to attempt to remove the WIPO chief from his post.
UN Committee Elects Syrian Diplomat as Rapporteur

February 29, 2016

Patrick Goodenough writes that a UN special committee dealing with decolonization issues has sparked an outcry among nongovernmental organizations by electing a diplomat from the Syrian Government, which has regularly faced accusations of atrocities against its people during an ongoing civil war in the country, as its rapporteur.