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.
Special rapporteur is the title given to independent human rights experts whose expertise is called upon by the United Nations (UN) to report or advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective.
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.
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.
Gerard Quinn is a professor of law at the University of Leeds and at the Wallenberg Institute in the University of Lund,Sweden. He was formerly professor of law at NUI Galway,Ireland,and Director of the university's Centre for Disability Law and Policy at the School of Law. He was appointed to the Council of State by the President of Ireland,Michael D. Higgins in 2012.
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.
Elizabeth Silvia Salmón Gárate is a Peruvian legal scholar and the current UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. She was appointed in August 2022 by the OHCHR,replacing Tomás Ojea Quintana.
Chaloka Beyani is a professor of international law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He has worked and published extensively in the fields of international human rights law,international criminal law and international humanitarian law,as well as on issues relating to humanitarian assistance and population displacements,in particular internal displacement. In 2023 Beyani was nominated by Zambia for election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Netherlands co-nominated Beyani. Zambia had previously put Beyani forth for the 2017 International Court of Justice judges election,but withdrew his name prior to the candidate selection process. If elected,he would have been the first Zambian judge at the ICJ. After five rounds of voting in the Security Council and one round of voting in the General Assembly,Beyani was not elected.
Siobhán Mullally is an United Kingdom-born Irish Professor of Law and the UN special rapporteur on human trafficking.
Heba Hagrass is an Egyptian sociologist. She was a member of the Egyptian House of Representatives from 2015 to 2020 and she became the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2023.
