#High Commissioner for Human Rights

[humanrightsday]

1st Meeting, 9th Session of Open-ended Intergovernmental Working Group on Transnational Corporations.

Ninth session of the open-ended intergovernmental working group on transnational corporations and other business enterprises with respect to human rights.

Item 1. Opening of the session

H.E. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk

Item 2. Election of the Chairperson-Rapporteur

Item 3. Adoption of the agenda and programme of work

[tjeromebaker]

Statement by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet after official visit to China

Source: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCR) 28 May 2022 Good evening and thank you all for joining me here today. This press conference has to be virtual, given the COVID-19 restrictions in place. But I hope this means that those of you who may otherwise not have been able to travel here from different parts of China have been able to join. Let me start by thanking the…

[jackoshadows]

Top UN official in New York steps down citing ‘genocide’ of Palestinian civilians

The director of the New York office of the UN high commissioner for human rights has left his post, protesting that the UN is "failing" in its duty to prevent what he categorizes as genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza under Israeli bombardment and citing the US, UK and much of Europe as "wholly complicit in the horrific assault". Craig Mokhiber wrote on 28 October to the UN high commissioner in Geneva, Volker Turk, saying: "This will be my last communication to you" in his role in New York.

Mokhiber, who was stepping down having reached retirement age, wrote: "Once again we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes and the organization we serve appears powerless to stop it."

"The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist colonial settler ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs … leaves no room for doubt."

Mokhiber added: "This is text book case of genocide" and said the US, UK and much of Europe were not only "refusing to meet their treaty obligations" under the Geneva Conventions but were also arming Israel's assault and providing political and diplomatic cover for it.

[impossiblesoul13]

@artan_ayan via Twitter

[vyorei]

Statement from Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights regarding the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital

[thesobsister]

Wait. The U.S. has given Israel $158 billion in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding, and now Scranton Joe wants us to kick in another $14 billion in assistance to Israel (CRS report here)?

[tfsfb]

"OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China" is a piece of waste paper.

[terrorismvictimsday]

A global toolkit that aims to support the integration of human rights in Member States' counter-terrorism strategy and policy.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) developed a global toolkit that aims to support the integration of human rights in Member States' counter-terrorism strategy and policy. As part of the launch of the toolkit, OHCHR will be organizing a panel discussion on why human rights matter in counter-terrorism strategy and policy.

Watch the OHCHR launch event - human rights toolkit!

[developmentinformationday]

2nd Meeting, 9th Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development.

The ninth session of the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development (EMRTD) will provide the Human Rights Council with thematic expertise on the right to development in searching for, identifying and sharing best practices with Member States and promotes the implementation of the right to development worldwide.

Watch the 2nd Meeting, 9th Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development

[withbriefthanksgiving]

The director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN (UN OHCHR), Craig Mokhiber, has resigned in a letter dated 28 October 2023

the resignation letter can be found embedded in this tweet by Rami Atari (@.Raminho) dated 31 October 2023.

The letters are here:

Transcription:

United Nations | Nations Unies

HEADQUARTERS I SIEGE I NEW YORK, NY 10017

28 October 2023

Dear High Commissioner,

This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.

I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocites, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN.

High Commissioner, we are failing again.

As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.

This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations "to ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel's atrocities.

Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais Wilson, Geneva

In concert with this, western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide, there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for radio Mules Collins in Rwanda.

In such circumstances, the demands on our organization for principled and effective action are greater than ever. But we phave not met the challenge. The protective enforcement power Security Council has again been blocked by US intransigence, the SG [UN Secretary General] is under assault for the mildest of protestations, and our human rights mechanisms are under sustained slanderous attack by an organized, online impunity network.

Decades of distraction by the illusory and largely disingenuous promises of Oslo have diverted the Organization from its core duty to defend international law, international human rights, and the Charter itself. The mantra of the "two-state solution" has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people. The so-called "Quartet" has become nothing more than a fig leaf for inaction and for subservience to a brutal status quo. The (US-scripted) deference to "agreements between the parties themselves" (in place of international law) was always a transparent slight-of-hand, designed to reinforce the power of Israel over the rights of the occupied and dispossessed Palestinians.

High Commissioner, I came to this Organization first in the 1980s, because I found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side of human rights, including in cases where the powerful US, UK, and Europe were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions, and much of the US media were still supporting or justifying South African apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the UN was standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side. Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.

In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US, and to fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures. It is a stunning historic irony that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in the same year that the Nakba was perpetrated against the Palestinian people. As we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the UDHR, we would do well to abandon the old cliché that the UDHR was born out of the atrocities that proceeded it, and to admit that it was born alongside one of the most atrocious genocides of the 20th Century, that of the destruction of Palestine. In some sense, the framers were promising human rights to everyone, except the Palestinian people. And let us remember as well, that the UN itself carries the original sin of helping to facilitate the dispossession of the Palestinian people by ratifying the European settler colonial project that seized Palestinian land and turned it over to the colonists. We have much for which to atone.

But the path to atonement is clear. We have much to learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world in recent days, as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk of beatings and arrest. Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe, Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying "not in our name", are all leading the way. All we have to do is to follow them.

Yesterday, just a few blocks from here, New York's Grand Central Station was completely taken over by thousands of Jewish human rights defenders standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to Israeli tyranny (many risking arrest, in the process). In doing so, they stripped away in an instant the Israeli hasbara propaganda point (and old antisemitic trope) that Israel somehow represents the Jewish people. It does not. And, as such, Israel is solely responsible for its crimes. On this point, it bears repeating, in spite of Israel lobby smears to the contrary, that criticism of Israel's human rights violations is not antisemitic, any more than criticism of Saudi violations is Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is anti-Buddhist, or criticism of Indian violations is anti-Hindu. When they seek to silence us with smears, we must raise our voice, not lower it. I trust you will agree, High Commissioner, that this is what speaking truth to power is all about.

But I also find hope in those parts of the UN that have refused to compromise the Organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so. Our independent special rapporteurs, commissions of enquiry, and treaty body experts, alongside most of our staff, have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian people, even as other parts of the UN (even at the highest levels) have shamefully bowed their heads to power. As the custodians of the human rights norms and standards, OHCHR. has a particular duty to defend those standards. Our job, I believe, is to make our voice heard, from the Secretary-General to the newest UN recruit, and horizontally across the wider UN system, incisting that the human rights of the Palestinian people are not up for debate, negotiation, or compromise anywhere under the blue flag.

What, then, would a UN-norm-based position look like? For what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, protection of the vulnerable, and empowerment for rights-holders, all under the rule of law? The answer, I believe, is simple—if we have the clarity to see beyond the propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of justice to which we are sworn, the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful states, and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace. To be sure, this is a long-term project and a steep climb. But we must begin now or surrender to unspeakable horror. I see ten essential points:

Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our positions must be unapologetically based on international human rights and international law.

Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the basis of their ethnicity.

One State based on human rights: We must support the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dicmantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.

Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.

Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their families currently living in the occupied territories, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.

Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations, enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented injustices.

Protection: We must press for the deployment of a well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.

Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and destruction of Israel's massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and, possibly, beyond.

Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such.

Solidarity: We must open our doors (and the doors of the SG) wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war, persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for their principled defense of Palestinian rights.

This will take years to achieve, and western powers will fight us every step of the way, so we must be steadfast. In the immediate term, we must work for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the longstanding siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the UN's political offices.

The UN's failure in Palestine thus far is not a reason for us to withdraw. Rather it should give us the courage to abandon the failed paradigm of the past, and fully embrace a more principled course. Let us, as OHCHR, boldly and proudly join the anti-apartheid movement that is growing all around the world, adding our logo to the banner of equality and human rights for the Palestinian people. The world is watching. We will all be accountable for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side of justice.

I thank you, High Commissioner, Volker, for hearing this final appeal from my desk. I will leave the Office in a few days for the last time, after more than three decades of service. But please do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance in the future.

Sincerely,

Craig Mokhiber

End of transcription.

Emphasis (bolding) is my own. I have added links, where relevant, to explanations of concepts the former Director refers to.

[humanrightsday]

Statement of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Human Rights Day 2023.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk's message to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[nelsonmandeladay]

15th Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court competition.

The Fifteenth Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition adopts a hybrid format, with the in-person final rounds scheduled to take place at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland from 17 – 21 July 2023 and the preliminary virtual rounds (online) scheduled to take place from 20 – 27 May 2023.

The World Moot is open to undergraduate and masters students from all universities in the world. Teams of two students (gender diversity is encouraged) from every university in the world are invited to submit heads of argument for a hypothetical human rights case. The 50 teams with the highest memorial grades are invited to participate in the preliminary oral rounds and present their arguments to human rights experts and judges of international tribunals at the UN headquarters in Geneva.

The Moot Court Competition is the largest gathering of students, academics and judges around the theme of human rights in the world. The Competition is open to students around the world. A team of two students from each university – preferably one woman and one man (gender diversity is encouraged) – is invited to participate in the competition.

[ersahtz]

The UK-Rwanda Refugee Arrangement - The Principle of the Thing

Author’s note: This is a paper I wrote in May 2021 for my refugee law class on the – you guessed it – UK-Rwanda refugee arrangement. As a result, its rather more academic than most of the material on here, but I find it interesting anyway, and I had a bunch of fun writing it. It was supposed to be published, but I was too busy arguing at the ICC Moot Court at the time, and it is now outdated.…

[biglisbonnews]

UN and partners appeal for $116 million as hundreds of thousands flee Somalia to Ethiopia Countries: Ethiopia, Somalia Sources: GOAL, Norwegian Refugee Council, UN Children's Fund, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, United Nations Population Fund, World Food Programme The humanitarian situation on the ground is dire, with moderate acute malnutrition observed in many children under five and in pregnant and nursing mothers. There is a high risk of disease outbreaks. https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/hundreds-thousands-flee-somalia-ethiopia-un-and-partners-call-urgent-funding

[holocaustremembranceday]

 Statement by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust 2023.

Today, we remember and honour the victims of the Holocaust. The six million Jews. Roma and Sinti people. Slavs. People with disabilities. LGBTI people. Prisoners of war. And the members of anti-Nazi networks across Europe whose voices of resistance were forever silenced.

Auschwitz-Birkenau – where brutal and abhorrent crimes were committed – was liberated 78 years ago today.

It is an acutely painful day of remembrance as we recall the deep abyss of torment, heartache and human suffering.

This year, we reflect on the theme of ‘home and belonging’ - two notions of safety that were callously destroyed by the state-sponsored, widespread ideology of hatred, persecution and murder perpetrated by the Nazi Party and their collaborators.

Home and belonging forever transformed as millions faced deportation and incarceration.

Home and belonging gone as they were tortured and murdered.

But amidst the horrors, I am moved by the countless stories of resilience and courage.

From the victims who forged deep friendships with others in the concentration camps.

To the individuals who bravely risked their lives to share their homes and shelter people in hiding.

To the survivors of the Holocaust, who rediscovered beauty and meaning in life after enduring the worst of humanity. Who built families, careers and futures in the face of profound trauma. Who reestablished the sense of safety, home and belonging that had been ripped away from them.

Emerging from history’s darkest hours and healing from profound pain takes extraordinary strength.

As a child born in post-war Austria, these events shaped me and whole generations. Our world perspective was permanently imprinted with the horrors that happened just kilometres away.

But we also found hope. This year, we mark the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document conceived in the aftermath of these heinous crimes.

A document that captures the determination of a generation that suffered the devastation of two global wars and the Holocaust.

A commitment from leaders the world over that justice, respect for human dignity, equality and rights are crucial to enduring peace.

A promise driven by the call to prevent another Holocaust and to reaffirm the concept of human dignity. The world said “never again.”

Yet anti-Semitism continues to escalate, with increasing attacks and violence against Jewish communities around the globe. Online and offline, hate speech is intensifying.

And the ongoing Holocaust denial and distortion of facts – the attempted rewriting of history - deeply undermines the suffering of generations.

I welcome the Holocaust denial resolution adopted last year by the UN General Assembly, a crucial milestone in the fight against anti-Semitism.

Now, as ever, we must also invest in education, the most important antidote to any form of intolerance and xenophobia. I join the General Assembly’s call that societies be educated truthfully about the facts of the Holocaust.

Today – in their memory - and in the face of rising xenophobia, intolerance, racism and racial discrimination - I call for a united and steadfast commitment to reject any attack against humanity that may lead to genocide.

We cannot erase the horrors of the Holocaust, but we must stand together against hate now and in the future.

We owe nothing less to the victims and the survivors.

[worldelderabuseawarenessday]

Understand and End Financial Abuse of Older People: A Human Rights Issue.

Event entitled "Understand and End Financial Abuse of Older People: A Human Rights Issue" on the occasion of the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day 2017 (15 June), organized by the Group of Friends of Older Persons, in collaboration with the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse, the NGO Committee on Ageing in New York, the Focal Point on Ageing of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)