On 21 November, ISHR celebrated the vital work of human rights defenders at a conference on 'The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Seventy-Five Years On: Achievements and Current Challenges.' A slightly shortened version of our speech is reproduced below.
Following substantial negotiations, UN Member States once again found common ground and reiterated their commitment to providing a safe and enabling environment for human rights defenders in the Third Committee's adoption of this biennial resolution by consensus.
On Thursday 12 October 2023, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, presented her report on women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in conflict, post-conflict and crisis-affected settings to the General Assembly’s Third Committee. While she acknowledges the fundamental work of WHRDs in these contexts, the report highlights the vulnerability that comes with it.
The UN General Assembly’s principal human rights committee — the Third Committee — has kicked off its deliberations. This year’s session will run for 7 weeks from 28 September to 17 November 2023. The Committee will be chaired by Ambassador Alexander Marschik (Austria). We present the key issues on the agenda below.
Activists from all regions of the world joined ISHR and a coalition of 17 civil society organisations to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and to call for an update of this landmark document.
The 54th session of the UN Human Rights Council (11 Sep - 13 Oct) will consider issues including reprisals, arbitrary detention, systemic racism, enforced disappearances, water and sanitation, and the rights of Indigenous peoples and people of African descent. It will also present an opportunity to address grave situations in over a dozen States. Here’s an overview of some of the key issues on the agenda.
The UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) voted in its Management Segment meeting to grant consultative status to seven NGOs that had been deferred for several years by the ECOSOC Committee on NGOs.
The Guatemalan government rejects 40% of recommendations at crucial UN human rights review. Amidst a delicate electoral context, NGOs urge the government to cooperate in good faith with UN bodies and implement key recommendations to address attacks against human rights defenders, justice officials, and discrimination against Indigenous Peoples, women, and LGBTIQ+ persons.
Civil society calls for an appropriate response from the Human Rights Council by establishing an independent international monitoring mechanism to undertake a global investigation into deaths, enforced disappearances, torture and other grave human rights violations faced by people in transit across international borders.
The 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council, from 19 June to 14 July 2023, will consider issues including sexual orientation and gender identity, violence and discrimination against women and girls, poverty, peaceful assembly and association, and freedom of expression, among others. It will also present an opportunity to address grave human rights situations including in Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Eritrea, Israel and oPt, Russia, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, among many others. Here’s an overview of some of the key issues on the agenda.
