Letters from the Chairperson of the Committee addressed to the Secretary-General and to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2007 ◽  
pp. 83-85 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations

UNHCR, Human Rights and Refugees Collection and Dissemination of Sources

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 35-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Mason
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Information Centre ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Self Image ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Policy Level ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The City

In a statement to the 52nd session of the Commission on Human Rights, then UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali characterized Geneva as the “city of human rights.” Interestingly, the first organization he used to illustrate his point was the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. While others may share this view of UNHCR as a “human rights organization,” UNHCR–at least on the policy level-has been slower to adopt this self-image. At the same time, it is easy to categorize UNHCR's Centre for Documentation and Research (CDR) as a “refugee and human rights” information centre because it sets out specifically to collect materials which fall within the human rights domain. To give you a better sense of the context in which CDR develops its collections, I would like to first review UNHCR's activities as they relate to refugees and human rights, then conduct a brief demonstration of a database which provides access to a significant repository of human rights documentation. Then you can decide for yourselves whether or not UNHCR indeed qualifies as a “human rights organization”!

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian MacNaughton ◽  
Mariah McGill
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Right To Health ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
The Right

For over two decades, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has taken a leading role in promoting human rights globally by building the capacity of people to claim their rights and governments to fulfill their obligations. This chapter examines the extent to which the right to health has evolved in the work of the OHCHR since 1994, drawing on archival records of OHCHR publications and initiatives, as well as interviews with OHCHR staff and external experts on the right to health. Analyzing this history, the chapter then points to factors that have facilitated or inhibited the mainstreaming of the right to health within the OHCHR, including (1) an increasing acceptance of economic and social rights as real human rights, (2) right-to-health champions among the leadership, (3) limited capacity and resources, and (4) challenges in moving beyond conceptualization to implementation of the right to health.

The Repatriation and Resettlement of the Southern Sudanese

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 23-26
Author(s):  
Louise W. Holborn
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Refugee Population ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
The Past ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

While the world press has focused over the past year on problems surrounding the creation of still another refugee population in Africa — that of Uganda's Asians — far too little attention has been directed to the remarkable though still fragile process of repatriation and resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Southern Sudanese. This population of displaced persons includes both refugees who fled to other countries and large numbers of homeless who hid in the bush during the civil war that wracked the Sudan for seventeen years, from 1955 through the first months of 1972. Responding to the initiatives of President Gaafar al-Nimeiry of the Sudan, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), under an explicit mandate from the Secretary- General of the United Nations, has been raising funds, organizing activities on behalf of the most pressing needs and working closely with all local interests to meet overwhelming problems.

On Behalf of the United Nations

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Falk
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Secretary General ◽  
Special Rapporteur ◽  
Human Rights Council ◽  
Occupied Palestinian Territory ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Palestinian Territory

This chapter reflects on the role as special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), which investigated the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The chapter first provides an overview of the role and office of special rapporteur, noting that UN concerns about Israel and responses to Palestinian grievances are highly politicized within the organization, before discussing some of the characteristics that distinguish the mandate established by the HRC and made applicable to Occupied Palestine. It also explains what was accomplished in six years as special rapporteur of the HRC and details the controversies and pressures attached to that job. It shows that the “UN” comprises different layers, agendas, and interests. The chapter claims that while the United Nations secretary-general in New York permitted personal attacks against the special rapporteur, the leadership and professionals of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva strongly supported his efforts in what the chapter calls the “legitimacy war”.

scholarly journals To Move Between and Often Within

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 196-198
Author(s):  
Theophilus Kwek
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
The United Nations

In February 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a damning report of human rights abuses perpetrated against the Rohingya. The report was based on interviews with Rohingya fleeing from Myanmar since 9 October 2016, with research continuing up to January 2017. Many recounted personal experiences of violence and physical, life-threatening harm. The report received some attention among humanitarian agencies (many of which have been banned from accessing Rakhine state) but was largely ignored by the international press. Headlines that week focused on the Trump administration’s attempts to defend its travel ban. This poem contains fragments and modifications of the report. It is not an attempt to supplant the voices of those at the heart of the report, but—by stripping down its language—an attempt to make (and mend) our ways of reading (and hearing) their stories.

scholarly journals Article 1: Definition of a Child

2022 ◽  
pp. 407-412
Author(s):  
Gerison Lansdown ◽  
Ziba Vaghri
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Human Being ◽  
United Nations High Commissioner ◽  
High Commissioner ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
To Come ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Polish Government

AbstractWhile all international human rights treaties apply to children, only the Convention explicitly elaborates who is defined as a child. Article 1 defines the child as a human being who is below the age of 18 years. Majority is set at age 18 unless, under domestic law, it is attained earlier. During the negotiations of the text of the Convention, there was significant debate regarding definitions of both the commencement and the ending of childhood. The initial text, proposed by the Polish Government, drawing on Principle 1 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959, provided no definition of childhood at all (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, p. 301). However, government delegates on the Working Group immediately highlighted the need for clarification. The first revision of the text therefore proposed that a child is a human being from birth to the age of 18 years unless majority is attained earlier. However, with regard to the beginning of childhood, the Working Group were unable to come to a consensus. An unresolvable division persisted on whether childhood, in respect of the Convention, commenced from the point of conception, or from birth (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, pp. 301–313). The conflict was ultimately resolved by removing any reference to the start of childhood.

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