A coalition of nongovernmental organizations has signed onto a “Toronto Declaration” that sets out human rights standards for machine-learning systems, particularly focused on requiring companies to ensure that such systems “respect the principles of equality and non-discrimination” and offer remedies to victims of alleged discrimination.
The UN Working Group on Mercenaries has called on Austria to avoid an “excessive” focus on punishing individuals who travel abroad to join and fight with terrorist groups and on combating political Islam as an ideology, instead emphasizing a need to “address the root causes of radicalisation and violent extremism” in a comprehensive manner.
George Russell examines how a recent report from UN human rights mandate holder Philip Alston blaming economic inequality in the US on regressive government measures and “persistent and chronic racial bias” overlooks data on declining poverty rates and is based on input from activist groups that oppose policies of the Trump Administration.
The BBC reports that UK Prime Minister Theresa May has divided her Conservative Party by adopting a Brexit negotiating position that would see the UK maintain a “common rulebook” with the EU, prompting resignations from her cabinet and critiques that such a plan would straitjacket UK trade policy.
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley writes that a recent report from UN human rights mandate holder Philip Alston blaming the US government for creating poverty in the country is a politically motivated and misleading manifesto that is a waste of American tax dollars.
The New York Times reports that the UN system, and particularly its development apparatus, is facing a rash of criticism for maintaining a “byzantine” reporting mechanism lacking consistent and predictable procedures for dealing with sexual abuse allegations and often favoring men in power over their female accusers.
The Times of Israel reports that, following the Trump Administration’s decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the Israeli government announced that it has temporarily reduced its participation in the body, which the country’s Prime Minister called a “biased, hostile, anti-Israel organization.”
A coalition of companies called Building Responsibly has published a set of Worker Welfare Principles, developed in consultation with “civil society stakeholders,” to establish a global “baseline” for labor rights in the engineering and construction industries aligned with international human rights standards.
The Washington Times reports that Rhode Island has become the first US state to file a lawsuit seeking damages from energy companies for their contribution to future negative impacts in the state caused by global warming.
The nongovernmental organization Germanwatch has published, with financial support from the German government, a report containing recommendations to EU institutions and the information technology (IT) industry on how best to implement the global human rights agenda and OECD guidelines in guidelines on minerals sourcing.
Council of Europe (CoE) Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović has called on CoE members to address the ongoing arrival of migrants in Greece “in a spirit of collective responsibility and solidarity” and warned of the impact of “austerity” measures on the social and economic rights of the country’s citizens.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that Russian courts violated the rights of two complainants to compensation by awarding them a low level of damages to compensate them for extra time they spent in prison.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has held that the Russian government failed to reform its practice of interfering with the ability of prisoners to maintain contact with their families by sending them to far-away prisons in response to a 2017 ECtHR judgment, and that Russia offered no effective remedy to challenge such policies.
A 41-year-old Malaysian man was fined $450 for violating certain parts of the state’s Islamic family law when he married an 11-year-old girl, although his fine did not include marriage to a minor.
Muslim organizations in France have deployed the term “Islamophobic” against critics of planned Islamic concerts, including a musician whose most well-known song is entitled “Jihad,” at the site of the 2015 Islamist terrorist attacks at the Bataclan theatre in Paris.
The Islamic State’s (IS) digital magazine has reported that IS militants staged an attack against security guards at a major prison in Saudi Arabia, with an unknown number of casualties.
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