The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,commonly known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the United Nations Human Rights Office,is a department of the Secretariat of the United Nations that works to promote and protect human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The office was established by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 December 1993 in the wake of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights.
Special rapporteur is the title given to independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.
Philip Geoffrey Alston is an Australian international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law,and co-chair of the law school's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. In human rights law,Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades,including United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,summary or arbitrary executions,a position he held from August 2004 to July 2010,and UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights from 2014-2020.
Vitit Muntarbhorn is an international human rights expert and professor of law at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok,Thailand. Muntarbhorn was designated in September 2016 as the first UN Independent Expert on violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity by the Human Rights Council before succeeded by Victor Madrigal-Borloz in 2018.
Maud de Boer-Buquicchio is a Dutch jurist and former UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children,child prostitution and child pornography. She served as Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe from 2002 and retired from the post in 2012 and was succeeded by Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni.
Maina Kiai is a Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist who formerly served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association from May 1,2011,to April 30,2017. Since 2018,he has headed Human Rights Watch's Alliances and Partnerships program.
The United Nations special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association works independently to inform and advise the United Nations Human Rights Council. The special rapporteur examines,monitors,advises and publicly reports on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association worldwide.
Agnès Callamard is a French human-rights activist who is the Secretary General of Amnesty International. She was previously the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial,summary,or arbitrary executions appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council,and the former Director of the Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression project.
David Kaye is an American politician who served as the United Nations special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression between August 2014 and July 2020. He was succeeded by Irene Khan. Kaye is clinical professor of law at the University of California,Irvine on public international law,international humanitarian law human rights and international criminal justice. He is co-director of the UCI Fair Elections and Free Speech Center working at the intersection of technology,freedom of speech and democratic deliberation. He is also the independent board chair of the Global Network Initiative.
Farida Shaheed is a Pakistani sociologist and feminist human rights activist. In 2012,she was appointed the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights,while she held that role in the field of education from 2022. She heads the Shirkat Gah women's resource centre in Pakistan,and is known for her extensive work on gender and class analysis,both in Pakistan and more globally.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran is a United Nations Special Rapporteur whose mandate is to monitor and investigate human rights violations in Iran. The current Special Rapporteur is Javaid Rehman. He is the sixth special rapporteur to Iran,following the tenures of Andrés Aguilar (1984–1986),Reynaldo Galindo Pohl (1986–1995),Maurice Copithorne (1995–2002),Ahmed Shaheed (2011–2016),and Asma Jilani Jahangir (2016–2018).
Yanghee Lee is a South Korean developmental psychologist and professor at Sungkyunkwan University. She is most noted for her work in international human rights organisations. Lee is highly recognized nationally,regionally,and internationally for her expertise in human rights. She has published numerous articles and books on human rights and children’s rights.
Michel Forst is a French national actively involved in the defence of human rights. Former Secretary General of the French national human rights institution,he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders from June 2014 to March 2020.
Reliable information about disability in North Korea,like other information about social conditions in the country,is difficult to find. As of 2016,North Korea is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Leilani Farha is a Canadian lawyer who is the Global Director of THE SHIFT,a housing initiative. Between June 2014 and April 2020,she was the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing.
Victor Madrigal-Borloz is a Costa Rican lawyer. Since 2018,he has served as the United Nations Independent Experton protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. During his tenure at the U.N.,Madrigal-Borloz has been noted for focusing his Human Rights Council mandate on investigating a broad and intersectional range of issues facing LGBT communities around the world,including conversion therapy,criminalization,socio-cultural exclusion,anti-trans rhetoric,and the outsized impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable LGBT and gender-diverse populations.
Approximately 12 million French citizens are affected by disability. The history of disability activism in France dates back to the French Revolution when the national obligation to help disabled citizens was recognized,but it was "unclear whether or not such assistance should be public or private." Disabled civilians began to form the first associations to demand equal rights and integration in the workforce after the First World War. Between 1940 and 1945,45,000 people with intellectual disabilities died from neglect in French psychiatric asylums. After the Second World War,parents of disabled children and charities created specialized institutions for disabled children for whom school was not accessible. In 2018,the French Government began to roll out a disability policy which aimed to increase the allowance for disabled adults to €900 per month,improve the digital accessibility of public services,and develop easy-to-read and understand language among other goals.
Dubravka Šimonović is a Croatian jurist and specialist in human rights. She was appointed on 1 August 2015 as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women,and is Visiting Professor in Practice in the Centre for Women,Peace and Security at the London School of Economics.
E. Tendayi Achiume is a Professor of Law and former Faculty Director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the University of California,Los Angeles. She served as the United Nations special rapporteur on Racism,Racial Discrimination,Xenophobia and Related Intolerance from her appointment in September 2017 until November 2022. She was the first woman appointed to this position since its creation in 1993.
Margaret Sekaggya is a Ugandan lawyer and human rights activist. She was born in Kampala 23 October 1949. In 1970,she began studying at Makerere University pursuing a bachelor of laws degree. In 1990,she attained a master of laws degree from the University of Zambia. She has worked with the governments of Uganda,Zambia,and the United Nations. From 1996 to 2009,she as the chairperson for the Uganda Human Rights Commission. In 1995,she had been appointed a judge of the High Court of Uganda. During this time,she was selected to oversee the Uganda Interim Electoral Commission. She also participated in the promulgation of the 4th Constitution of Uganda in 1995. During much of the 80s,she was based at the United Nations Institute for Namibia,readying Namibia's institutions for transition into independence. From 1978 to 1982,she was a magistrate based in Lusaka. From 2008 to 2014,Sekaggya was the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights defenders.
