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US-EU Deal Creates Ombudsperson for Data Complaints
March 02, 2016
Reuters reports that a deal struck between the US and the EU to replace the previous Safe Harbor framework on transatlantic data transfers creates an Ombudsperson at the US State Department who handles European complaints on all types of data transfers between the parties and organizes an "alternative dispute resolution mechanism" to solve grievances.
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Oxford Plans Launch of Human Rights Institute
March 02, 2016
Oxford University has begun construction of an institute on human rights that it plans to open later this year and that will seek to work in conjunction with the university's Faculty of Law to promote the study of human rights law.
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WEF Article Seeks Way Forward for Global Governance
February 29, 2016
Two staff members at the World Economic Forum ("WEF") write on the WEF website that global governance systems must be adaptable and pragmatic to survive in the current world and that actors must establish a kind of governance that incentivizes long-term over short-term interests.
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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.
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UN Official Pushes Preventive "Responsibility to Protect"
February 29, 2016
Using the chaos in Syria as an example of the failure of the international community to fulfill its "responsibility to protect," agreed at a UN summit in 2005, UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson called on countries to put this principle in action by intervening early in conflicts to prevent calamities including genocide and crimes against humanity.