In a stark setback for civil society at the UN, members of the Committee on NGOs moved to strip two organisations of their consultative status, with several more NGOs likely to face similar action in upcoming sessions.
Are you a human rights defender working on democratic backsliding and/or racial justice, keen to use the UN to push for change at home? If so, apply for the 2026 edition of ISHR’s flagship training, the Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme (HRDAP)!
The UN Committee against Torture reviewed Bahrain’s fourth periodic report during its 83rd session in Geneva in November 2025. The dialogue focused heavily on the situation of human rights defenders, torture, accountability, and conditions of detention.
As the genocide in Gaza exposes deep corporate complicity, experts and human rights defenders convened in Geneva to discuss urgent paths toward accountability. This discussion unpacked how businesses, investors, and States must act now to end profiteering from atrocity crimes.
During the 38th Human Rights Council special session on the human rights situation in and around El Fasher, in the context of the ongoing conflict in Sudan, ISHR delivered a joint statement with Sudanese Women’s Rights Action, and the Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in South West Asia and North Africa.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in civil war. In view of the unheeded calls for a ceasefire and the alarming violations of human rights, the African Commission conducted a virtual joint fact-finding mission on the situation in the country.
In a first-of-its-kind investigation into the closed-door negotiations of the UN’s budget in New York, ISHR uncovers how a small group of States - led by China and Russia - have coordinated efforts to block and slash funding for the UN’s human rights work through political manoeuvring and influence. At a moment of sweeping UN reform and financial crisis, these efforts - compounded by the US failure to pay their UN membership fees and outstanding debts - pose an existential threat to the UN’s human rights system.
Under item 4 of the General Debate, Palestinian Indigenous human rights defender Khulood Abu Obaid called on the Human Rights Council to address institutionalised racial domination and oppression, displacement, and denial of Palestinian rights. Read and watch the full statement below.
During HRC60 Item 10 Technical assistance and capacity-building for Yemen in the field of human rights, Yemeni woman human rights defender Abha Abdullah Baawedan delivered a joint statement on behalf of ISHR, the Justice4Yemen Pact Coalition, and DT Institute.
Civil society organisations, including ISHR, make a joint statement marking the one year anniversary of the announcement of a legal initiative to hold Afghanistan accountable under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
