The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and was also assisted in its work by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR). It was the UN's principal mechanism and international forum concerned with the promotion and protection of human rights.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a treaty body composed of 18 experts, established by a 1966 human rights treaty, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee meets for three four-week sessions per year to consider the periodic reports submitted by the 173 States parties to the ICCPR on their compliance with the treaty, and any individual petitions concerning the 116 States parties to the ICCPR's First Optional Protocol. The Committee is one of ten UN human rights treaty bodies, each responsible for overseeing the implementation of a particular treaty.
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. The headquarters of the Council are at the United Nations Office at Geneva in Switzerland.
Special rapporteur, independent expert, and working group member are titles given to individuals working on behalf of the United Nations (UN) within the scope of "special procedure" mechanisms who have a specific country or thematic mandate from the United Nations Human Rights Council. The term "rapporteur" is a French-derived word for an investigator who reports to a deliberative body.
The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is an international treaty adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. Described as an international bill of rights for women, it was instituted on 3 September 1981 and has been ratified by 189 states. Over fifty countries that have ratified the Convention have done so subject to certain declarations, reservations, and objections, including 38 countries who rejected the enforcement article 29, which addresses means of settlement for disputes concerning the interpretation or application of the convention. Australia's declaration noted the limitations on central government power resulting from its federal constitutional system. The United States and Palau have signed, but not ratified the treaty. The Holy See, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, and Tonga are not signatories to CEDAW.
Michael Gahler is a German diplomat and politician who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 1999. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) is a quasi-judicial body tasked with promoting and protecting human rights and collective (peoples') rights throughout the African continent as well as interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and considering individual complaints of violations of the Charter. This includes investigating human rights violations, creating and approving programs of action towards encouraging human rights, and set up effect communication between them and states to get first hand information on violations of human rights. Although the ACHPR is under a regional government facility, they don't have any actual power and enforcement over laws. This ends up in them drafting up proposals to send up the chain of command to the Assembly of Heads of State and Government and they will act accordingly.
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child was adopted by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1990 and was entered into force in 1999. Like the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Children's Charter is a comprehensive instrument that sets out rights and defines universal principles and norms for the status of children. The ACRWC and the CRC are the only international and regional human rights treaties that cover the whole spectrum of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.
Maria Edith Guzenina is a Finnish politician who became a household name in Finland after working as a first Finnish VJ for MTV Europe from 1993 until 1997. Her career in journalism started in the late 1980s, when only at the age of 17 and still a student in high school she became a co-host of a famous Finnish television personality Timo T. A. Mikkonen in his daily magazine type program. Since then she has hosted several television programs and shows for the Finnish National Broadcasting Company, hosted several radio talk shows and has written articles and columns for numerous Finnish newspapers and magazines.
The World Heritage Committee selects the sites to be listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including the World Heritage List and the List of World Heritage in Danger, defines the use of the World Heritage Fund and allocates financial assistance upon requests from States Parties. It comprises representatives from 21 state parties that are elected by the General Assembly of States Parties for a four-year term. These parties vote on decisions and proposals related to the World Heritage Convention and World Heritage List.
The right to food, and its variations, is a human right protecting the right of people to feed themselves in dignity, implying that sufficient food is available, that people have the means to access it, and that it adequately meets the individual's dietary needs. The right to food protects the right of all human beings to be free from hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition. The right to food does not imply that governments have an obligation to hand out free food to everyone who wants it, or a right to be fed. However, if people are deprived of access to food for reasons beyond their control, for example, because they are in detention, in times of war or after natural disasters, the right requires the government to provide food directly.
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. In 2014 he was appointed to an unpaid role as UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
Gay Johnson McDougall is an American lawyer who has spent her career addressing international human rights and racial discrimination. She is currently a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Leitner Center on International Law and Justice of Fordham University Law School. She was Executive Director of Global Rights, Partners for Justice. In August 2005, she was named the first United Nations Independent Expert on Minority Issues, serving until 2011.
The Chairperson of the African Union is the ceremonial head of the African Union (AU) elected by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government for a one-year term. It rotates among the continent's five regions.
Joyce Aluoch is a Kenyan lawyer who served as Judge of the International Criminal Court from 2009 until 2018. She is a former judge of the High Court of Kenya. In addition to her career as a judge, she was the First Chairperson of the Committee of African Union Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Vice-Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2003 to 2009. She has also served as the inaugural head of the family division of the Kenyan High Court and a member of the Court of Appeal.
Marina Schuster is a German politician of the liberal Free Democratic Party.
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.
Gabriele "Gabi" Weber is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as member of the German Bundestag from 2013 until 2021.
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.
Rita Izsák-Ndiaye is an independent senior human rights expert and former Hungarian diplomat. She has worked on human, minority and youth rights in various NGOs, the Hungarian Government and with international organizations. She served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues between 2011 and 2017, as well as member and Rapporteur of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination between 2018-2022. She is currently the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Children and Security.