OHCHR

GENEVA, June 26, 2020 – A UN human rights expert has urged the European Union to use its “economic weight, diplomatic expertise and aid, trade and investment leverage” to forestall looming Israeli plans to annex parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. Michael Lynk, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in […]

GENEVA (19 June 2020) – UN experts* today expressed profound concern over a recent statement by the US Attorney-General describing Antifa and other anti-fascist activists as domestic terrorists, saying it undermines the rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly in the country. “International human rights law protects the right to freedom of expression, […]

GENEVA, June 9, 2020 – UN human rights experts* today urged the Japanese Government to delay any decision on the ocean-dumping of nuclear waste water from the reactors at Fukushima Daiichi until after the COVID-19 crisis has passed and proper international consultations can be held. “We are deeply concerned by reports that the Government of […]

GENEVA / SEOUL, June 9, 2020 – A UN independent expert is alarmed that widespread food shortages and malnutrition in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) have been exacerbated by COVID-19 measures and has called for urgent Government and international action to ensure food supplies. In a statement released today, the UN Special Rapporteur […]

GENEVA (6 April 2020) – UN human rights experts made an urgent appeal for governments to commit to racial equity and racial equality in providing health services for all during the COVID-19 crisis or risk a higher death rate because of discrimination. The Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said in a […]

GENEVA (3 April 2020) – A UN human rights expert today called for the lifting of all  unilateral sanctions that obstruct the humanitarian responses of sanctioned States, in order to enable their health care systems to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and save lives. “I urge the international community to take immediate measures to lift, or […]

GENEVA (27 March 2020) – States and businesses must urgently step up their efforts to ensure that health care workers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide receive adequate protective equipment, said Baskut Tuncak, UN Special Rapporteur on hazardous substances. “The brave doctors, nurses, emergency first-responders and other medical professionals working on the frontlines of the global […]

GENEVA (27 March 2020) – Society has a duty to exercise solidarity and better protect older persons who are bearing the lion’s share of the COVID-19 pandemic, a UN human rights expert said. “Reports of abandoned older persons in care homes or of dead corpses found in nursing homes are alarming. This is unacceptable,” said […]

GENEVA, March 23, 2020 – Governments must ensure that their response to the COVID-19 pandemic does not contribute to xenophobia and racial discrimination, and must eradicate xenophobia  throughout all State policy and messaging, said E. Tendayi Achiume, UN Special Rapporteur on racism, on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. “Crises […]

GENEVA (9 March 2020) – Individuals detained in Iranian detention facilities are suffering from serious human rights violations and the situation of those arrested during the November 2019 protests is a subject of particular concern, said a UN expert in his latest report presented to the Human Rights Council. Javaid Rehman, UN Special Rapporteur on […]

GENEVA (5 March 2020) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joseph Cannataci, has called for gender equality to be embedded in privacy practices around the world. Over the years, the work of his mandate has revealed deeply disturbing breaches of privacy relating to individuals’ gender. These infringements frequently lead to […]

GENEVA (3 March 2020) – States must accelerate their efforts and lead a coordinated global response to eradicate the sale and sexual exploitation of children, both online and offline, said a UN expert in her last report to the Human Rights Council. “Children continue to be sold and trafficked within their own countries and across […]

GENEVA (31 January 2020) – The Trump plan on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a lopsided proposal entirely in favour of one side to the conflict, said Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. “What the Trump plan offers is a one and a […]

GENEVA (23 January 2020) – States must take urgent and effective steps to monitor antisemitic incidents, ensure accountability for perpetrators of violence, and protect Jewish individuals, communities and sites as part of their effort to combat antisemitism, said UN human rights experts*. In a statement marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January 2020, […]

GENEVA (27 December 2019) – UN human rights experts* have condemned the death sentence handed down by a court in Pakistan to university lecturer Junaid Hafeez, who had been charged with blasphemy.  The sentence came despite a landmark Supreme Court ruling in last year’s Asia Bibi blasphemy trial, and an urgent appeal by UN experts […]

GENEVA December 26, 2019 – A UN human rights expert* expressed double shock at the death sentences handed down to five people in Saudi Arabia over the killing of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, following a secretive trial. “The executioners were found guilty and sentenced to death. Opposed to the death sentence, this is a first […]

GENEVA (20 December 2019) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Friday applauded a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of the Netherlands which requires the State to take more ambitious climate action in order to protect human rights from the adverse effects of climate change. The Netherlands’ highest court upheld an […]

GENEVA / QUITO Dec. 10, 2019 – Ecuador’s adoption of a comprehensive law to end violence against women marks significant progress in the fight against gender-based violence, however a number of obstacles are preventing it being fully operational, a UN human rights expert has concluded after a fact-finding visit. Proposed budget cuts, the criminalisation of […]

GENEVA December 4, 2019 – It is critically important for States to ensure the broadest public participation in decision-making about development action that affects them, says a group of UN human rights experts*. In a statement marking the 33rd anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development, they urge all States to include everyone […]