The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat 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.
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.
Juan E. Méndez is an Argentine lawyer,former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel,Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,and a human rights activist known for his work on behalf of political prisoners.
Christopher John Robert Dugard is a South African professor of international law. His main academic specializations are in Roman-Dutch law,public international law,jurisprudence,human rights,criminal procedure and international criminal law. He has served on the International Law Commission,the primary UN institution for the development of international law,and has been active in reporting on human-rights violations by Israel in the Palestinian territories.
Nils Joachim Melzer is a Swiss academic,author,and practitioner in the field of international law. From 2016 until 2022,Melzer was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel,Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. He is a professor of international law at the University of Glasgow. From 2011-2013,he was Swiss Chair of International Humanitarian Law at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. Melzer has criticised the governments of the U.S.,the U.K.,Ecuador and Sweden over their treatment of Julian Assange.
The Republic of Uruguay is located in South America,between Argentina,Brazil and the South Atlantic Ocean,with a population of 3,332,972. Uruguay gained independence and sovereignty from Spain in 1828 and has full control over its internal and external affairs. From 1973 to 1985 Uruguay was governed by a civil-military dictatorship which committed numerous human rights abuses.
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.
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor is an independent,nonprofit organization for the protection of human rights.
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.
Stanley Michael Lynk is a Canadian legal academic. He is currently an associate professor at the University of Western Ontario. From 2016 to 2022 he was the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied since 1967.
Marcia Vaune Jocelyn Kran is a Canadian lawyer and expert member of the UN Human Rights Committee. Kran's career has spanned international human rights law,criminal law and political science for over forty years,and includes positions in academia and civil society. Kran has held a range of senior United Nations positions including in international human rights law.
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.
Clément Nyaletsossi Voule is a Togolese diplomat and jurist. Voule served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association from 2018 to 2024. Prior to this,Voule served as African Advocacy Director International Service for Human Rights (ISHR).
Following the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis,the United Nations Human Rights Council voted on 27 May 2021 to set up a United Nations fact-finding mission to investigate possible war crimes and other abuses committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories,the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Tlaleng Mofokeng is a South African physician who is the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health. She campaigns for universal health access and HIV care. She was named one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2021.
Francesca P. Albanese is an Italian international lawyer and academic. On 1 May 2022,she was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories for a three-year term. She is the first woman to hold the position.
Siobhán Mullally is an United Kingdom-born Irish Professor of Law and the UN special rapporteur on human trafficking.
Mariana Katzarova is a Bulgarian journalist who founded the charity 'RAW on WAR',which created the Anna Politkovskaya Award. She became the first United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Russian Federation in 2023.
Alice Cruz is a Portuguese anthropologist who became a lawyer and the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of people with leprosy.
