Training Workshops Empower Local Advocacy Groups
The training workshops in Kenya were intended to explain the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process and to provide information and the skills necessary for human rights advocacy groups to follow-up…
Poor Denied the Basic Right to Health
Speaking in the General Debate at the recent Session of the Human Rights Council In Geneva, the Vatican representative Archbishop Tomasi addressed the issue of the right of everyone to…
ERI makes UN submission on USA Guest-worker program
As a contribution to the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights record of the United States, due to take place in November, Edmund Rice International has made a submission…
Kenya accepts most of the outcomes recommended in its Universal Periodic Review
Following the interactive dialogue phase of the Universal Periodic Review, the Kenyan government has indicated its support for one hundred and twenty eight of the recommendations that were made to…
Kenya faces the Music
I spent three hours watching Kenya, a large and complex African nation, being assessed on its human rights record. Over 78 countries had lined up to speak to Kenya about…
Human Rights Special Procedures – what are they?
“Special procedures” is the general name given to the mechanisms used by the Human Rights Council of the UN to address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all…
Human Rights and Climate Change
I attended the Human Rights Council session on “Human Rights and Climate Change” recently. The session took the form of a short input from a range of experts on different…
Big Doings in the Big Apple – New York, May 2 – 10, 2009
New York is famous for its ‘buzz’. Brian Bond and I spent a week there, not sampling the lifestyle but visiting the warren of offices, centres, meeting rooms, and halls…
Miguel Barcelo and Geneva Ceiling
I spent almost all of Friday, December 12th, in the new Human Rights Council chamber at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. A special commemorative session to mark the 60th…
United Nations Human Rights Conference
This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights the first universal statement on the basic principles of the human rights to which…