UN experts on Wednesday urged Israel to withdraw a bill proposing the mandatory death penalty for terrorist acts, warning it would violate the right to life and discriminate against Palestinians. The urgent call was issued by a group of UN Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts, who detailed how the proposed legislation would create a two-tier [...]
UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Tuesday reiterated that “the occupation must end,” warning that recent Israeli settlement plans and mounting restrictions on humanitarian organizations threaten the possibility of a two-state solution and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Speaking at the 2026 Opening Session of the Committee on the Exercise of the [...]
At a moment when the meaning and vitality of the rule of law are hotly debated, we risk forgetting that the principles we now take for granted were not inevitable—they were fought for, often by individuals whose names have been forgotten. This series profiles the pioneers of rights: people who identified gaps in legal protection [...]
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday that crackdowns on freedoms increased in several West African countries throughout 2025, following the release of its annual global report on the status of human rights. The 36th edition of the World Report documented a widespread regression in political and civil rights across the region. The report highlighted extended [...]
UN experts on Wednesday condemned the conviction of lawyers and human rights defenders Imaan Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha by the District and Sessions Court in Islamabad, Pakistan. Several independent experts, including the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, [...]
The UN Security Council on Tuesday condemned terrorist attacks which took place in Pakistan’s Balochistan province on January 31. The attacks killed 48 people, 31 of whom were civilians. In a press release issued by Council President James Kariuki of the United Kingdom, the Council described the attacks as “heinous and cowardly.” It expressed sympathy [...]
Ethiopia’s federal government on Tuesday acknowledged for the first time that troops from neighboring Eritrea took part in the war in the Tigray region, which formally ended in 2022. The government said Eritrean forces were responsible for mass killings, destroying homes, and looting factories. The Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s acknowledgment marks a major change [...]
Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned the January 3 attack by the US military on Venezuela and the abuses committed by the ousted Maduro government. On January 3, the Trump administration announced that it had conducted a raid on Venezuela, resulting in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. US President Trump [...]
UN peacekeepers were forced to temporarily suspend their patrols along the Israel-Lebanon Blue Line on Sunday in response to the Israeli military releasing what they referred to as a “non-toxic substance.” Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) told the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) that they would be carrying out an “aerial activity dropping what [...]
The Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (Geneva Academy) published a report on Monday that detailed numerous serious human rights violations and war crimes between July 2024 and December 2025 across 23 armed conflicts, and emphasized increased risks posed to journalists and aid workers in conflict zones. The report, titled “War Watch,” [...]
