Mapuche indigenous leaders were hit hard by what they see as a collective defeat: the rejection in a September referendum of a plurinational, intercultural constitution proposed to Chile by an unprecedented constituent assembly with gender parity and indigenous representatives.
More than 100 radio stations were shut down by the Venezuelan government this year, accentuating the collapse of the media and further undermining the already meager capacity of citizens to stay informed.
The UN Democracy Fund, also known as UNDEF, is an interesting tool but it is too small and lacking resources to mark a difference.
How can the UN do a better job at promoting democracy? This is a key question that high-ranking policy makers at the UN should ask themselves.
A head of state who presided over an authoritarian regime in Southeast Asia, was once asked about rigged elections in his country.
“I promised I will give you the right to vote” he said, “but I didn’t say anything about counting those votes.”
For decades, there have been non-conclusive deliberations regarding how the international community could support poor and vulnerable countries in their efforts to cope with and recover from the havoc wreaked on their territory by the ill-effects of global warming such as severe droughts, floods, storms, or rising sea levels.
COP 27 delivered on what was the ‘litmus test’ for its success – consensus on the establishment of a fund on loss and damage. What seemed impossible was made possible, largely due to the unity of the G77 and China and the role of the Egyptian Presidency. Also important were efforts by civil society groups who put pressure on the United States, the main blocker to having the fund.
We are living in a world where both our bilateral and multilateral achievements, consensuses on human rights and social justice, and our resolve to public good are being tested like never before.
The COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh has triggered a negative fallout for Egypt’s authoritarian regime which stands accused of human rights abuses -- and has been widely condemned for its longstanding repressive campaign against dissidents and civil society organizations (CSOs).
Before she was murdered in Honduras in 2016, the Lenca Indigenous woman and human rights defender Berta Cáceres poignantly said: “They are afraid of us because we are not afraid of them.”
The organisational is personal. Every day since the two of us were asked back in 2020 to co-lead the process of culture transformation at UNAIDS, the United Nations organisation which drives global efforts to end AIDS, we have both felt at our very core how crucial it has been to get it right.
It’s been over a month since Bayan, a 30-year-old Persian language teacher, last left her home in the Kurdish city of Piranshahr, 730 northwest of Tehran. Her parents believe they must protect her from what might happen to a protester in Iran.
A coalition of civil society organisations is demanding public development banks (PDBs) to take radical and innovative steps to tackle human rights violations and environmental destruction. No project funded by PDBs should come at the expenses of vulnerable groups, the environment and collective liberties, but should instead embody the voices of communities, democratic values and environmental justice.
Talks of an inevitable U.S. military intervention in Haiti are brewing within diplomatic circles. Without any constitutional or legal authority, our Haitian de facto government gave the green light for special forces to be sent to Haiti to combat our poor people-forgotten, jobless, left with no other choice for survival but the gang violence and insurrection ravaging the country.
The United Nations has singled out 42 countries (out of 193 member states) for condemnation-- virtually blacklisting them-- for retaliating against human rights activists and journalists
By all accounts Israel is considered a democratic country, but a close look at its domestic political combustion sadly reveals that Israel’s democracy is in tatters and is tearing at the seams. This is due to the political leaders’ dismal failure to summon their collective resourcefulness and energy to respond to the call of the hour
“If all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves”. This quote from the Nigerian writer
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is in the introduction to Dipo Faloyin's book '
Africa is not a country'. It summarizes Faloyin's book nicely.
“This woman sitting next to me, Maria Ressa, is a Nobel laureate and a
convicted criminal,” said barrister Amal Clooney, who co-leads the international legal team representing Ressa. The founder of news website Rappler, Ressa has been targeted with a
barrage of legal charges intended to stop her journalism in the Philippines.
This week is a momentous one for the world’s premier human rights body. At stake is a resolution to decide whether the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva can hold a debate on a recently released UN report.
With no shortage of catastrophes in the past 15 years worldwide — the democratic left is stepping up to provide stability amid the storm.
Throughout the history of mankind, there have been catastrophes. In modern times, there have also been media representations of catastrophe, including worked-up or even imagined catastrophes.
As world leaders gather in New York for the opening of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly this week, the security horizon is undoubtedly dark.
This week, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett,
released his first report. It is a catalog of abuses under Taliban rule since August 2021 and their devastating impact on Afghans.