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 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 are titles 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. Depending on the specific mandate, there can also be working groups composed of an independent expert from each of the five UN regional groupings. Their work falls within the scope of "special procedure" mechanisms under the United Nations Human Rights Council, and their contributions can advance human rights through a variety of activities, including, but not limited to improving access to redress, policy reform, mainstreaming human rights, raising human rights awareness, and acting to prevent or cease rights violations.
Christopher John Robert Dugard, known as John 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.
Defamation of religion is an issue that was repeatedly addressed by some member states of the United Nations (UN) from 1999 until 2010. Several non-binding resolutions were voted on and accepted by the UN condemning "defamation of religion". The motions, sponsored on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), now known as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, sought to prohibit expression that would "fuel discrimination, extremism and misperception leading to polarization and fragmentation with dangerous unintended and unforeseen consequences". Religious groups, human rights activists, free-speech activists, and several countries in the West condemned the resolutions arguing they amounted to an international blasphemy law. Critics of the resolutions, including human rights groups, argued that they were used to politically strengthen domestic anti-blasphemy and religious defamation laws, which are used to imprison journalists, students and other peaceful political dissidents.
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a mechanism of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (HRC) that emerged from the 2005 UN reform process. Commonly referred to as the UPR, it was established by General Assembly resolution 60/251 of 3 April 2006, the UPR periodically examines the human rights performance of all 193 UN Member States. It is intended to complement, not duplicate, the work of other human rights mechanisms, including the UN human rights treaty bodies. This is the first international human rights mechanism to address all countries and all human rights. The Working Group on the UPR, which is composed of the HRC's 47 Member States and chaired by the HRC President, conducts country reviews.
Reparations are broadly understood as compensation given for an abuse or injury. The colloquial meaning of reparations has changed substantively over the last century. In the early 1900s, reparations were interstate exchanges that were punitive mechanisms determined by treaty and paid by the surrendering side of conflict, such as the World War I reparations paid by Germany and its allies. Reparations are now understood as not only war damages but also compensation and other measures provided to victims of severe human rights violations by the parties responsible. The right of the victim of an injury to receive reparations and the duty of the part responsible to provide them has been secured by the United Nations.
Memorialization generally refers to the process of preserving memories of people or events. It can be a form of address or petition, or a ceremony of remembrance or commemoration.
Surya Prasad Subedi, OBE, KC, DCL is an international jurist. He is Professor of International Law at the University of Leeds, a member of the Institut de Droit International, and a Barrister in London. He also is a visiting professor on the international human rights law programme of the University of Oxford. He served as the United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in Cambodia for six years (2009-2015). He also served for five years, starting in 2010, on an advisory group on human rights to the British Foreign Secretary. In 2021, he was appointed legal procedural advisor to the World Conservation Congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature held in Marseille, France. He has written a number of works on the theory and practice of international law and human rights and acted as a counsel in a number of cases before the international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice. In 2022, he was appointed to the list of arbitrators under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA).
Pablo de Greiff is a Colombian academic and a human rights activist, who served as the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence. In January 2015 he was also asked to be part of UNIIB, a United Nations mission of Independent Experts to address the situation in Burundi. From 2019 to 2020 he was part of a group of experts advising the UN Human Rights Council on its preventive functions. Since 2014 he is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice of the School of Law at New York University, where he directs both the Transitional Justice Program and the Prevention Project.
Human rights and climate change is a conceptual and legal framework under which international human rights and their relationship to global warming are studied, analyzed, and addressed. The framework has been employed by governments, United Nations organizations, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, human rights and environmental advocates, and academics to guide national and international policy on climate change under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the core international human rights instruments. In 2022 Working Group II of the IPCC suggested that "climate justice comprises justice that links development and human rights to achieve a rights-based approach to addressing climate change".
The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food is a Special Rapporteur who works for the United Nations and reports on the right to food. The mandate was established in 2000 by the former Commission on Human Rights which appointed the first Rapporteur, Dr. Jean Ziegler. In 2008 the second Rapporteur, Dr. Olivier De Schutter, was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the successor to the Commission. In 2014 the third Rapporteur, Hilal Elver was appointed. In 2020, the current Rapporteur, Michael Fakhri, was appointed.
The United Nations Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order is a United Nations Independent Expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council under its special procedures mechanism, to report on the thematic field of the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order. The mandate was established by Human Rights Council resolution 18/6, chiefly supported by developing countries.
Colombia has been in the throes of civil unrest for over half a century. Between 1964 and now, 3 million persons have been displaced and about 220,000 have died, 4 out of 5 deaths were non-combatant civilians. Between left and right-winged armed forces, paramilitary and/or guerrilla, and an often corrupt government, it has been difficult for Colombia to set up any kind of truth or reconciliation commission. That is why the first on the scene, so to speak, were representatives of the UN. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has been present in Colombia since 1997. Since 2006 though, there has been another international movement turning its attention to Colombia; namely the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). The works of both of these institutions have led to a few semi-official national committees to oversee truth seeking missions in the hopes of eventually achieving reparation. In 2012, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) began their fourth attempt to negotiate an end to the fighting. Peace talks between the Colombian government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC, the main guerrilla force in the country, are currently underway in Havana, Cuba. The main issues are land redistribution, integration of the FARC into the political arena and an end to the powerful cocaine cartels. Though past attempts at peace talks have failed, negotiators in Havana, Cuba have gotten significantly further than ever before. Experts agree that it is not unreasonable to expect an accord by the end of 2014. In the words of President Santos: "Only in a Colombia without fear and with truth can we begin to turn the page."
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.
The Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the landmark document resulting from the investigations on human rights in North Korea commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2013 and concluded in 2014.
The post of Special Rapporteur on Minorities has been created as minorities in all regions of the world are exposed to serious threats, discrimination and racism and are often excluded from participation in economic, political and social life. It shall provide for the implementation of the Declaration on the Rights of Members of National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, taking into account existing international norms and national minority laws.
The Declaration on the Rights of Peasants is an UNGA resolution on human rights with "universal understanding", adopted by the United Nations in 2018. The resolution was passed by a vote of 121-8, with 52 members abstaining. The declaration has been interpreted to be in support of the seed sovereignty movement.
Mihir Kanade is an author and professor of international law, human rights and development at the University for Peace (UPEACE), an international treaty-based organization and institution of higher education established in pursuance of Resolution 35/55 adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1980. He holds the concurrent positions of the Academic Coordinator of UPEACE since 2016, the Head of its Department of International Law since 2014, and the Director of the UPEACE Human Rights Centre since 2009. Kanade is best known for his contribution to the promotion of the human right to development. He chairs the drafting group appointed by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Chair-Rapporteur of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Right to Development, for preparing the “zero draft” of a legally binding instrument on the right to development. On 13 March 2020, Kanade was elected by the United Nations Human Rights Council as a member of the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development in representation of the Asia-Pacific region.
Right to truth is the right, in the case of grave violations of human rights, for the victims and their families or societies to have access to the truth of what happened. The right to truth is closely related to, but distinct from, the state obligation to investigate and prosecute serious state violations of human rights. Right to truth is a form of victims' rights; it is especially relevant to transitional justice in dealing with past abuses of human rights. In 2006, Yasmin Naqvi concluded that the right to truth "stands somewhere on the threshold of a legal norm and a narrative device ... somewhere above a good argument and somewhere below a clear legal rule".
