UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai convened an expert consultation in Geneva on December 9 to help shape the parameters of his next thematic report, which will be presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2014. The thematic report will focus on how laws and practices may discriminate against and exclude certain groups when exercising or seeking to exercise their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. The Geneva consultation was organized to focus on problems faced by specific groups that the Special Rapporteur and his team… Continue reading →
Six women working on women’s issues in Pakistan are killed in an ambush. A workshop for LGBT human rights defenders is disrupted by authorities in Uganda. Indigenous leaders in the Philippines are subject to a wave of harassment, threats and killings. Thirteen women in Cambodia are imprisoned for defending their community against corporate land-grabbing. And four migrant bus drivers in Singapore are charged with inciting an illegal strike. Exercising the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association can be dangerous for anyone, anywhere in… Continue reading →
Many States view human rights as an integral part of their foreign policy – or at least claim to. There are many challenges in fully integrating human rights into foreign policy, and in keeping them there through difficult geopolitical circumstances. On November 13, 2013, the Ireland Department of Foreign Affairs will host its annual NGO Forum on Human Rights in Dublin. The subject is “Ideals and Interests; the place of Human Rights in Foreign Policy.” The goal of the conference is to examine the difficulties in the integration of human rights… Continue reading →
