United Nations

Governments Commit to Contribute Further to UN Climate Action

May 29, 2019

According to the UN Secretary-General’s envoy on climate change Luis Alfonso de Alba, 80 countries currently signed up to the UN’s Paris climate accord have agreed to ramp up their pledges to clamp down on greenhouse gas emissions to fulfill the goals of the UN’s agenda on global warming.
UN Chief: Carbon Subsidies “Destroy the World”

May 29, 2019

At a recent forum for action on global warming, UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an end to worldwide fossil fuel subsidies, through which, he said, officials were spending taxpayer money “to destroy the world.”
Trump Announces Withdrawal from UN Arms Trade Treaty

May 01, 2019

NPR reports that US President Donald Trump has announced his Administration’s withdrawal from the UN Arms Trade Treaty, signed by the Obama Administration but never ratified by the US Senate, characterizing the move as taking back US policymaking from an “unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy."
UNICEF Warns of Climate Impacts on Bangladeshi Children

April 29, 2019

Showing the expanding focus of UN agencies on the impacts of climate change, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has published a report seeking “urgent action” to protect children in Bangladesh from the catastrophic results of global warming and warning of an increasing number of “climate migrants” in the country.
UN Chief Calls for Autonomous Weapons Ban

April 26, 2019

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called on a Group of Governmental Experts meeting under the auspices of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons to propose an absolute ban of “fully autonomous” weapons systems that can kill human beings, saying such weapons must be prohibited under international law.
IAAF Criticizes UNHRC Statement on Rules for Female Athletes

April 26, 2019

The BBC reports that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has criticized as “inaccurate” a UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution characterizing rules restricting the participation of female athletes with high testosterone levels in certain competitions as a violation of international human rights standards.
UNESCO Report Illustrates Challenges with Water, Sanitation “Rights”

April 25, 2019

A UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report warning of the ongoing global violation of the right to “access to water and sanitation” illustrates challenges in the UN system’s approach of classifying what are traditionally policy goals within the broad legal framework of the international human rights agenda.
UN “Roadmap” Pushes Gender Dimension in Social Policy

April 25, 2019

The March meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women concluded with the adoption by diplomats of a set of commitments to take a “gender-responsive” approach to a broad array of social-protection, public-services, and other policies.
UN Report Pursues Global “Gender-Environment” Data

April 25, 2019

Highlighting the UN system’s commitment to the “economic, social, and cultural rights” agenda and to pursuing ambitious action on global warming, the UN Environment Programme has published a report calling on governments to provide a broad set of data on the nexus between women’s rights and environmental policies.
WHO Body Calls for Genome Editing Registry

April 23, 2019

An international committee convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for governments to create a global registry publicly listing all experiments related to human genome editing and announced future efforts to create a “strong international governance framework” for such technology.