The United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) was an international organization formed under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1035 on 21 December 1995. It completed its mandate on 31 December 2002,when it was succeeded by the European Union Police Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Peacekeeping comprises activities intended to create conditions that favour lasting peace. Research generally finds that peacekeeping reduces civilian and battlefield deaths,as well as reduces the risk of renewed warfare.
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.
The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO,an acronym based on its French name Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la stabilisation en République démocratique du Congo,is a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) which was established by the United Nations Security Council in resolutions 1279 (1999) and 1291 (2000) to monitor the peace process of the Second Congo War,though much of its focus subsequently turned to the Ituri conflict,the Kivu conflict and the Dongo conflict. The mission was known as the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo or MONUC,an acronym of its French name Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en République démocratique du Congo,until 2010.
Vesna Pusić is a Croatian sociologist and politician who served as First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the centre-left cabinet of Zoran Milanović. She was Croatia's second female Foreign Minister taking the office after Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. She is known as outspoken liberal and an advocate of European integration,anti-fascism,gender equality and LGBT rights.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New York City,with offices in Boston and Washington,D.C. It was established in 1986 to use the unique skills and credibility of health professionals to advocate for persecuted health workers,prevent torture,document mass atrocities,and hold those who violate human rights accountable.
The United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti,also known as MINUSTAH,an acronym of the French name,was a UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti that was in operation from 2004 to 2017. The mission's military component was led by the Brazilian Army and the force commander was Brazilian. The force was composed of 2,366 military personnel and 2,533 police,supported by international civilian personnel,a local civilian staff and United Nations Volunteers.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a body of experts that monitor and report on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Navanethem "Navi" Pillay is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. A South African of Indian Tamil origin,she was the first non-white woman judge of the High Court of South Africa,and she has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008 and was extended an additional two years in 2012. She was succeeded in September 2014 by Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad. In April 2015 Pillay became the 16th Commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty. She is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.
Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad bin Zeid al-Hussein is a Jordanian former diplomat who is the Perry World House Professor of the Practice of Law and Human Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the president and CEO of the International Peace Institute. He also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018. He played a central role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court,and was elected the first president of the Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court in September 2002. He also served as a political affairs officer in UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1996.
An Associated Press (AP) investigation revealed in 2017 that more than 100 United Nations (UN) peacekeepers ran a child sex ring in Haiti over a 10-year period and none were ever jailed. The report further found that over the previous 12 years there had been almost 2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers and other UN personnel around the world. AP found the abuse to be much greater than originally thought. After the AP report,U.S. Ambassador to the UN,Nikki Haley,urged all countries to hold UN peacekeepers accountable for any sexual abuse and exploitation. As early as 2004,Amnesty International reported that under-age girls were being kidnapped,tortured and forced into prostitution in Kosovo with UN and NATO personnel being the customers driving the demand for the sex slaves. The UN's department of peacekeeping in New York acknowledged at that time that "peacekeepers have come to be seen as part of the problem in trafficking rather than the solution".
Sinha Basnayake,PC is a Sri Lankan lawyer. He was a former Director of the General Legal Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs and a member of the Internal Justice Council.
Kathryn Bolkovac is a human rights advocate,consultant,former police investigator with the Lincoln Police Department,and former monitor with United Nations International Police Task Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She came to prominence when she sued her employers for unfair dismissal after she lost her job following her attempts to expose sex trafficking in Bosnia. Her story was shown in the film The Whistleblower and told in the nonfiction book,The Whistleblower,with journalist Cari Lynn.
Flavia Pansieri was the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights at the level of Assistant Secretary-General. She was appointed to this position by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 15 March 2013,and resigned on 22 July 2015,departing on 31 December 2015 after the selection of her successor was announced.
The sexual abuse scandal in Haiti arose in 2007,accusing the United Nations peacekeepers,mainly of the Sri Lankan peacekeeping contingent,of committing immoral sexual abuse among other offenses of sexual misconduct during the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti. In 2016,the Sri Lankan government decided to make a one-time ex-gratia payment to a victim and child born as a result of sexual exploitation and abuse,which was praised by the UN.
Madeleine Selina Rees,OBE is a British lawyer and current Secretary General of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She has spoken out against human rights abuses in Bosnia by peacekeepers and others working for the United Nations.
Human rights is an issue in Guatemala. The establishment of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala has helped the Attorney General prosecute extrajudicial killings and corruption. There remains widespread impunity for abusers from the Guatemalan Civil War,which ran from 1960 to 1996,and Human Rights Watch considers threats and violence against unionists,journalists and lawyers a major concern.
Princess Sarah Zeid is an Jordanian-American humanitarian and maternal and newborn health activist. Through her marriage to Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad al-Hussein,she is a Jordanian princess and a member of the House of Hashem. Her husband is the heir apparent to the pretender of the abolished throne of Iraq.
Secret prisons of SBU are secret detention facilities operated by Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in Eastern Ukraine to incarcerate Russian-backed separatists.
The EHRC–OHCHR Tigray investigation is a human rights investigation launched jointly by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in mid-2021 into human rights violations of the Tigray War that started in November 2020. The EHRC–OHCHR joint investigation team's report was published on 3 November 2021.
