United Nations

UN Agency Seeks Gender-Based Approach to Disasters

August 09, 2017

UN Women has launched a new program, called "Gender Inequality of Risk," through which it will seek a gender-mainstreaming approach to responses to large-scale disasters, including those brought on by global warming.
UN Promotes "Adaptation Plans" on Climate, SDGs

August 09, 2017

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recently held a Technical Expert Meeting on Adaptation in Bonn, Germany, at which government and other participants discussed how to integrate the UN's broad agendas on global warming, "sustainable development," and disaster risk reduction into a single social and environmental policy framework.
HRW: China Is "Infecting" UN Rights Mechanisms

August 09, 2017

Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch (HRW) warns that China is "infecting" the UN system with efforts to "undermine" the international organization's human rights mechanisms and calls for UN bodies to assure Chinese human rights activists "that the UN belongs equally to them."
Report on WHO Shows Risks of UN Private Diplomacy

August 09, 2017

An AP report on former World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan's penchant for praising authoritarian countries, such as North Korea and Russia, for real and imagined health achievements, in apparent exchange for favors to the UN agency, highlights the risks to legitimacy caused by UN leaders' diplomatic "appeasement."
UN Rights Chief Criticizes Israeli Detention Practices

August 09, 2017

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has warned Israel that its "administrative detention" practices for some Palestinian prisoners do not comply with international law and called for the Israeli government to offer detainees access to lawyers and family members.
NGO: UN Indigenous Declaration Requires Broad Social Action

August 09, 2017

A press release from Amnesty International argues that Canada is obligated under the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to provide shelters for women, ensure the survival of indigenous languages, and cure the "massive inequalities" that face indigenous communities.
Schaefer: US Budget Plans Can Hasten UN Reform

August 09, 2017

Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation writes that the Trump Administration can use its proposals for cuts to US funding for the UN system to push for "reform and budgetary restraint" in the international organization.
Paper Calls on US to Withdraw from UNFCCC

August 09, 2017

In the lead-up to US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the UN's 2015 Paris climate agreement, Nicolas Loris and Brett Schaefer of the Heritage Foundation called on the US Administration to not only withdraw from the "costly, unworkable, and ineffective" climate deal, but also from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
New WHO Chief Prioritizes "Health as a Rights Issue"

August 09, 2017

In May, the newly elected Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made clear that his priorities as head of the UN agency would be, in addition to managing "global health emergencies," to press for "universal health coverage" and "health as a rights issue."
UN Laments Proposed US Funding Cuts

August 09, 2017

Reuters reports that a spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General has demonstrated the disproportionate reliance of the UN system on US taxpayer funding by lamenting that US President Donald Trump's proposed cuts in funding to the body, and especially to its peacekeeping arm, would "make it impossible" for the UN to perform "its essential work."