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United Nations Human Rights Council

Time to Get It Right: Southeast Asian Nations Human Rights Declaration

Grace Poore | Posted 11.26.2012 | World
Grace Poore

Foreign Ministers from ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in New York on September 27 to review the ASEAN H...

Disappearances in Pakistan: The U.N. Mission Must Succeed

Malik Siraj Akbar | Posted 11.14.2012 | World
Malik Siraj Akbar

This visit may give impetuous to international calls to the Pakistani government to end suspected extrajudicial practices and punish officials responsible for the countless cases of forced disappearance.

Syria, Human Rights and the United Nations

Ted Piccone | Posted 11.09.2012 | World
Ted Piccone

While Lakhdar Brahimi's mission on behalf of the U.N. Security Council and the Arab League to facilitate peace is admirable, he inherits a mandate that utterly failed, and conditions for peace have only gotten worse.

Getting Real on Human Rights at the U.N.

Ted Piccone | Posted 09.05.2012 | World
Ted Piccone

In the past several days, sound and fury again erupted in Geneva, with allegations of hypocrisy leveled against the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Dan Froomkin

U.S. Ignores U.N. Plea To Protect Occupy Protest Rights

HuffingtonPost.com | Dan Froomkin | Posted 06.18.2012 | World

WASHINGTON -- Federal officials have yet to respond to two United Nations human rights envoys who formally requested that the U.S. government protect ...

A Human-Rights Lens on the Affordable Care Act

Risa E. Kaufman | Posted 05.28.2012 | Politics
Risa E. Kaufman

By extending health care coverage to new, under-served groups, the ACA squarely responds to concerns repeatedly raised by international human rights bodies and experts about racial disparities in U.S. health care policy.

Voter ID Insanity at DOJ Going to the United Nations

Ken Blackwell | Posted 05.13.2012 | Politics
Ken Blackwell

The right to vote includes the right not to have your vote diluted by fraudulent votes. And as citizens, each of us has a duty to comply with reasonable measures to ensure that our elections are free and fair.

Bradley Manning, Solitary Confinement and Occupy 4 Prisoners

Bill Quigley | Posted 04.24.2012 | Crime
Bill Quigley

One of the major complaints of prisoner human rights activists is the abuse of solitary confinement in prisons across the U.S.

Dignifying Health: Why Not Quite Everything Is Relative

David Katz, M.D. | Posted 02.19.2012 | World
David Katz, M.D.

One might allow that rules and norms vary by culture. But we have no need to blaze new trails here. The United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights establishes, based on the consensus of humanity, that dignity is a human right. Cultural relativism has gone a step too far when it steps on dignity.

UN Committee Condemns Syrian Crackdown

AP | EDITH M. LEDERER | Posted 01.22.2012 | World

UNITED NATIONS — A key U.N. committee voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to condemn human rights violations by President Bashar Assad's government and...

Gay People Affirmed To Be Human By United Nations

Rev. Dr. Cindi Love | Posted 09.09.2011 | Religion
Rev. Dr. Cindi Love

I have never been more proud to be an American and a global citizen of the United Nations than on the day the United States and the majority of nation-members of the U.N. issued this declaration.

U.N. Suspends Libya From Human Rights Council

AP/The Huffington Post | By ANITA SNOW | Posted 05.25.2011 | World

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. General Assembly suspended Libya from its top human rights body as governments worldwide pressured Muammar Gaddafi to ...

Who Is Afraid of Talking about Iran's Human Rights Crisis?

Hadi Ghaemi | Posted 05.25.2011 | World
Hadi Ghaemi

The Iranian government is vulnerable to international criticism regarding human rights and can be pushed to reduce repression on its citizens, but its game of creating conflict, division and confusion has largely succeeded.

The "Objective" UN Human Rights Council

Kyle Shamberg | Posted 05.25.2011 | World
Kyle Shamberg

Until the UN Human Rights Council stops turning a blind eye to the myriad abuses occurring elsewhere, focusing nearly all of its resources on attacking one nation, it will continue to be impossible to take seriously.

A Long Time Coming: The Human Right to Water

Peter H. Gleick | Posted 05.25.2011 | Green
Peter H. Gleick

There is a formal international human right to life, to human health, to an adequate standard of living, to adequate food, and more. But until a few weeks ago, there was no formal human right to water. This was a long time coming.

A "Progressive Hero?" Time to Think Outside of the Boxer

Stephen Zunes | Posted 05.25.2011 | Politics
Stephen Zunes

Democracy for America doesn't seem to have a problem with backing those who support the self-destructive policies of Netanyahu, though they would refuse to support those who backed the same kinds of policies under Bush.

Clean Water -- A Basic Human Right

John DeCock | Posted 05.25.2011 | Green
John DeCock

In a society driven by profits and politics, clean, safe water is the result of a sustained, vigilant effort. But how do our actions in the United States impact the rest of the world's water?

Indigenous Guatemalans Tell United Nations: No to Mining, Yes to Life

Tracy L. Barnett | Posted 05.25.2011 | Green
Tracy L. Barnett

They came by the thousands to witness a day that would mark history for their people: a visit from James Anaya, the world's highest-ranking indigenous advocate, U.N. Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Rights.

UN Torture Investigator, Manfred Nowak, Barred From Cuban Prisons

Yoani Sanchez | Posted 05.25.2011 | World
Yoani Sanchez

Our rulers in their olive-green have not allowed this specialized inspection agency to examine the prisons, because they feel that our system of incarceration "does not need an endorsement."

When Abortion Is "Gendercide"

Madeline Wheeler | Posted 05.25.2011 | World
Madeline Wheeler

Without enough women, some Indian girls from poor areas are being sold as wives to higher caste men. Often these girls service more than one male and are kept essentially as sex slaves.

Congress, Accountability, and the Goldstone Report

Salena Tramel | Posted 05.25.2011 | World
Salena Tramel

Congress--and all Americans for that matter--should welcome each and every investigation of human rights violations, wherever and by whomever they may have been committed.

Gaza War Crimes Trial Reopens

AP | FRANK JORDANS | Posted 05.25.2011 | World

GENEVA — The U.N. Human Rights Council will reopen the debate about alleged war crimes in Gaza later this week after Palestinians succeeded in g...

Glaring Omissions in Goldstone Report

State Rep. Julie Hamos | Posted 05.25.2011 | Chicago
State Rep. Julie Hamos

Where is the repudiation of Hamas' refusal to recognize the State of Israel? How can Israel negotiate for a two-state solution when one Palestinian partner is bent on its destruction?

The United Nations Kangaroo "Investigation" of Israeli "War Crimes"

Alan Dershowitz | Posted 05.25.2011 | World
Alan Dershowitz

Richard Goldstone knows that unless his report condemns Israel, at least as forcefully as it condemns Hamas, it will never be accepted by the UN Human Rights Council.

US War Crime Probes Inadequate: UN Expert

AP | FRANK JORDANS | Posted 05.25.2011 | World

GENEVA — An independent U.N. human rights investigator said Thursday that the United States is failing to properly investigate alleged war crime...