UN Treaty Watch

UN Body Demands Australian Review of Migration Law

October 17, 2018

The Guardian reports that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has called on Australia to review provisions of its Migration Act allowing the government to place asylum seekers under administrative detention and revise the law to comply with the country’s international human rights obligations.
BC Moves to Establish “Fully Independent” Rights Body

August 06, 2018

The Star Vancouver reports that the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) is establishing a “fully independent” human rights commission to focus on the realization of global standards on “Indigenous rights and gender identity,” in addition to “opportunities for new immigrants.”
UN Agents: Criminalizing Migration Violates Rights

July 16, 2018

A group of UN human rights mandate holders has issued a statement calling on governments negotiating the UN Global Compact on Migration to ground the Compact in their international human rights obligations and end the “criminalisation and detention of migrants” as extending beyond the legitimate interests of the state.
UN Body Demands Rehabilitation for New Zealand Rapists

June 01, 2018

The UN Human Rights Committee has concluded that the New Zealand government violated the human rights of two convicted rapists by denying them release from preventive detention and by failing to grant them proper treatment to cure their "sexual and aggressive feelings towards women."
UN Committee Points to Racism as Cause of Gaza Deaths

May 16, 2018

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has issued a statement decrying the killing by Israeli forces of Palestinian "demonstrators" in Gaza, in the context of the 50-year "occupation" of Palestinian territory and a "rise of racist hate speech and incitement to racist violence against Palestinians" by Israeli government officials.
UN Rights Observers Oppose Polish Abortion Bill

April 26, 2018

A group of UN human rights mandate holders has called on the Polish Parliament to reject legislation prohibiting abortions in the case of a severe fetal anomaly, warning that restricting access to abortion in this way would violate the country's obligations to uphold women's "sexual and reproductive health rights" and to prevent "cruel and inhuman treatment."
UN Agent: Israel Is Violating Health Rights of Palestinians

April 23, 2018

UN Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk has issued a report blaming Israel for a "profound breach of its responsibility" to provide for a right to health in "occupied" Palestinian territories and pointing to the impact of Israel's presence in these territories on the mental health of Palestinians as evidence that Israel must withdraw its forces from these areas.
CEDAW Demands "Gender Responsive" Climate Policies

April 18, 2018

A report from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) calls on national governments and others to fulfill the global economic, social, and cultural rights agenda by ensuring that measures addressing the impacts of global warming are "gender responsive" and promoting the involvement of women in the formulation of climate policies.
UN Group: US Is Violating Rights Through Guantanamo Detention

March 27, 2018

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has determined that the detention by the US since 2006 of a Pakistani man accused of terror-related offenses at Guantanamo Bay contravenes international human rights law, calling on the US to release the man with compensation and to close the Guantanamo detention facility.
UN Torture Committee Publishes Asylum Guidelines

March 21, 2018

The UN Committee against Torture has published a set of global guidelines for governments containing principles officials must consider to comply with international human rights law when considering whether to admit asylum seekers who may face torture in their country of origin.