2018: an important year for human rights and climate change
By Tiphaine Di Ruscio, URG
The idea that climate change undermines and may contribute to the violation of human rights, and that human rights obligations and principles can guide improved international and national climate change policy by focusing attention on the needs of the most vulnerable, is now well established. Yet it was not always so. Back in 2008, when the Maldives first raised the issue of climate change at the Human Rights Council, many States, especially large industrialised economies and emerging economies, objected – arguing that human rights and climate change represent two separate and distinct areas of international law...
> read more
___________________________________
Towards a stronger connection between human rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: The role of the Human Rights Council
By Dr. Maria Smirnova, The University of Manchester
On 23 March 2018, the Human Rights Council concluded its 37th regular session, during which it addressed a wide range of human rights issues and heard 95 reports of human rights experts addressing 35 thematic and 50 country-specific situations. Among the 42 adopted resolutions, the Council adopted two complementary texts aimed at mainstreaming human rights in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development...
> read more
___________________________________
NGO advocacy and the Council's prevention mandate
By Nicolas Agostini, Representative to the United Nations for DefendDefenders
As the Human Rights Council enters its teenage years, the Council’s ‘prevention mandate’—i.e., its responsibility to ‘contribute, through dialogue and cooperation, towards the prevention of human rights violations and [to] respond promptly to human rights emergencies’—has become one of the hot topics of discussion. Operationalising the prevention part of the Council’s mandate was the central theme of the last Glion Human Rights Dialogue (Glion IV)....
> read more
___________________________________
China Rising
By URG Team
However, beneath a familiar surface of UN documentation, general debates, panels and resolutions the 37th session (HRC37) carried with it deep geopolitical symbolism. Specifically, the session provided further evidence of a new Chinese assertiveness at the Council - a new determination to present a Chinese vision or worldview on human rights, and further proof (if indeed it was needed) that as the world's hegemon, the United States, threatens to step back or 'disengage' from the UN's apex human rights body ...
> Read more
___________________________________
The role of UN field staff in supporting national tracking systems for following up to human rights recommendations
By Emilie Filmer-Wilson is a Human Rights Advisor at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
The number of human rights recommendations made to Member States has increased rapidly over the past few years. To track progress with meeting these recommendations in a more systematic manner, a number of Member States have created specific tracking mechanisms and tools. In these efforts, they are increasingly turning to UN Country Teams for support. To enable UN field staff to effectively respond to these requests, the UN Development Group, under the leadership of UNFPA, has ...
> Read more
