Venezuela's democratic political and social leadership needs to reflect on its strategies to confront authoritarianism, as well as its strengths and weaknesses, ...
The Inter-American Court will likely be the first regional human rights tribunal to develop an advisory opinion on the climate emergency, prompting normative effects ...
A new Advisory Opinion of the IACtHR underscores the penalties that deprive pregnant women, caregivers, elderly and Indigenous persons of their liberty.
Between 2006 and 2013, the Haitian government granted more than 50 mining permits to three U.S. and Canadian companies to explore land occupied by dozens of communities ...
Despite long-standing obstacles, Latin American and Caribbean local and national migrant- and diaspora-led associations and organizations have involved themselves ...
Making sexual and reproductive health services accessible in practice means the limits of invoking conscientious objection must be incisively interrogated.
In this Data Column, we explore and compare the usage of several climate-related terms in English and Spanish to track how they have evolved over time.
A transnational racial justice lens is essential to understand recent Haitian migration through the Americas, but also to develop any future policy responses.
History has shown that despite strong opposition to Special Procedures, they have been valuable mechanisms for catalyzing positive changes at the local level.
The human rights framework can buttress the responses needed to address the emergency, providing tools to guarantee human dignity and the right to a healthy environment.
The Mexican State failed in its obligation to guarantee access to human rights for millions because it did not have a sufficient social security infrastructure ...
Impunity in Mexico is not accidental, random, or involuntary. Instead, impunity results from a chain of actions taken with the express purpose of undermining investigations.
A Colombian lawyer and professor reflects on how research can serve as a complement to peacebuilding, but also as a catalyst for further conflict and trauma.
"To confront attacks on women and land simultaneously, we have had to learn to tackle discrimination and dismantle unequal power relations in all spheres at once."
Effective efforts to combat bonded and child labor in the Indian sandstone supply chain will require a nuanced approach to establish the right incentives to enforce ...
A genuine step for the Biden-Harris administration would be to formally establish a standing coordination mechanism across all relevant parts of the US government ...
Returning to the rule of law and fortifying democracy in the U.S. will best be accomplished by reemphasizing the country’s own democratic and egalitarian values, ...
Based on a representative sample, researchers found that respondents’ assessment of current human and civil rights conditions was strongly correlated with their ...
The restoration of asylum rights to domestic violence survivors in the US illuminates the power of strategic litigation to create positive change—but there are ...
Immigrants have decried the use of detention as migration deterrence for years, but the pandemic has given advocates a new touch point in the collective social ...
Indigenous women in Guatemala are using the concept of extraterritorial obligations to hold corporations accountable for violence—and to set important precedents ...
Rather than using the pandemic to consolidate power, Bolsonaro has denied the problem and clashed with his own government—could this mistake end his autocracy?
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has set a precedent with its decision to grant territorial and ancestral rights to Indigenous peoples in Argentina—how ...
The current protests should come as no surprise in the face of such blatant disregard of the human rights of Black people and the systemic, institutional and everyday ...
Can activists in Haiti and American-based law students and professors create trust, honesty, and a commitment to equality in radically unequal conditions?
A “gender-neutral” approach to human rights due diligence is insufficient, and corporations should take proactive steps towards addressing systemic gender discrimination.
Indigenous women in Ecuador are standing up to an extractive industry that has displaced vulnerable communities and concentrated land ownership in the hands of ...
Because social media platforms dominate public forums worldwide, a governance system rooted in “social values” instead of human rights may be convenient for companies, ...
Palantir has argued that its technology does not play an active role in deportations and the human rights violations that have occurred under the Trump administration, ...
Violence against women and the LGBTI community has a long history in Colombia’s state security apparatus, and recent murders of women human rights defenders are ...
Small states often lack the capacity to engage effectively with the treaty body system as currently structured—it must become more streamlined and present locally ...
The indigenous peoples of French Guiana used an urgent procedure of the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to help stop a mining development—more ...
Venezuela’s election to the Human Rights Council despite UN scrutiny—including by Treaty Bodies—of human rights abuses shows need for greater coherence in the international ...
The existing rejection and distrust of human rights among high-income Brazilians result mostly from lack of knowledge and reflection, rather than populist or radical ...
Chile has long held a moderate political tradition in Latin America, but recent trends point to alarming support for an ultra-conservative leader who will undoubtedly ...
When much broader communities can harness intellectual property rights, these shifts can contribute to reducing inequality and improving the standard of life for ...
Declining economic conditions in cities and communities around the world have inspired more people to organize locally to defend and promote our “right to the city.”
The US Global Gag Rule is impeding far more than access to abortion in the global South—services for HIV, tuberculosis, sanitation, and nutrition are all being ...
Lawsuits have become an increasingly frequent route for urgent action on climate change, but the impact of this litigation depends on citizens’ mobilization
Despite low levels of trust in the justice system, citizens in Chile and Colombia still make legal claims, but marginalized groups opt for informal strategies over ...
The rise of religious fundamentalism in Latin America—in conjunction with the populist trend sweeping the globe—is threatening LGBTQ rights and placing people in ...
Under the leadership of president elect Bolsonaro, Brazil must be poised for increased threats to public security, the environment and democratic space.
Systematic discrimination means that—despite vocational programs—many prisoners in Brazil and elsewhere end up with less opportunities than before they were incarcerated.
Misconceived and poorly executed US efforts to reform the UN Human Rights Council failed. But the UN human rights machinery needs reform—shown by its response to ...
Despite closing space for civil society, the new Escazú Agreement—which offers protection measures for environmental groups and defenders—is a shining example of ...
In Colombia, public consultations have successfully halted exploitative mining projects. But can these consultations help to fight back against corruption?
An innovative intervention by international experts in Mexico invigorated the work of human rights organizations to fight against systemic impunity in the country
Shifting to local community funding is possible in Latin America, as a case in Argentina clearly shows. Can more organizations make such similar shifts in a sustainable ...
As elected governments increasingly launch power grabs and smear campaigns against their critics, NGOs across Latin America must work together to restore democracy, ...
Activism against environmental exploitation in Ecuador requires going up against titanic powers, and legal empowerment has helped indigenous groups do just that.
Situations of inhumane treatment and abuses of power are where we need human rights the most, and the family separation issue in the United States is symptomatic ...
Self-care and collective care do not erase the stress and tensions of everyday life, but using these strategies can sustainably improve our coexistence and work ...
American Indians are actively resisting Trump’s efforts and working to achieve their civil and human rights, even as US federal and state governments work to erode ...
A new lawsuit in Colombia involving young plaintiffs seeks to protect their rights to life and health by preventing deforestation and holding the government accountable ...
Human rights problems are increasingly more complex and cross-cutting. Can collaboration across issue areas and geographic regions make advocacy more effective?
The Inter-American Human Rights System is an important tool for Latin American human rights defenders, but why are the Court and the Commission lagging behind on ...
Trump’s attitude towards human rights is not entirely new: our presumed liberal world order is more about liberal economics and pursuing wealth than about protecting ...
A new collaboration in Colombia is bringing together activists, scientists, physicians and other experts to collect hard evidence on the human rights impacts of ...
Due to lack of community consultation and negative socio-environmental impacts, the Belo Monte dam in the Brazilian Amazon has become a prime example of how not ...
Three Latin American countries are experimenting with drug law reforms to reduce prison populations, but getting to the root of the issue is the hardest part.
In Kenya, Guatemala and Brazil, courts have defied presidents and shaken up politics—is court-centric advocacy one of the few remaining avenues to legitimately ...
When the ACLU uses civil rights and free speech to defend white supremacists, it reflects the ideological foundations of rights discourses that try to erase white ...
Human rights organizations and funders in Latin America need to rethink how they protect defenders in light of increasing threats from non-state actors and impunity ...
Human rights regimes such as the European Convention on Human Rights are unlikely to shield citizens against the wave of authoritarianism threatening liberal democracies.
Reparations for conflict-related harms as set out in the peace accords are only a fraction of many pending debts owed to Colombia’s ethnic communities.
Human rights—as a movement that critiques systemic inequalities and affirms our common humanity—offers a transformative alternative to a politics of fear and exclusion.
For rights activists, Trump’s victory is a dark cloud with one silver lining. For the next four years, human rights groups will be inoculated against accusations ...
The UN-sponsored International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) has shaken the country’s political system to its core. However, the long-term consequences ...
A shell-shocked America, a Brexit-divided United Kingdom and a crisis-stricken Europe: they should all note the conciliatory efforts made by Nobel Peace Prize winner ...
As the US prepares for president Trump, anyone who cares about human rights should be alarmed that he has pledged to restore torture as one of his top five priorities.
A Trump presidency poses a grave threat to human rights—not only in the US but also worldwide. For human rights advocates, it can’t be business as usual.
Global institutions and principles now face their sternest test. Trump’s victory suggests human rights activists should devote themselves to the morass of domestic ...
In August 2016, the World Social Forum brought global justice activists to Montreal, the first time it was ever held in the global North. But this reorientation ...
Failing to acknowledge its involvement in the 2010 Cholera outbreak in Haiti, the UN undermined public health norms and violated the human rights standards that ...
In the United States, gun deaths over the last three decades far exceed those reported in truth commissions and civil wars around the world in the 1970s, 1980s ...
A key concern for many Argentinians, among the numerous changes Mauricio Macri’s government has implemented, is the dismantling of hard-won human rights gains.
Women’s rights advocates are using fears around Zika to fight for better access to birth control, but in Latin America the issues run much deeper than that.
An agreement recently concluded between the Colombian government and the FARC rebels promises both peace and justice, and deserves support by human rights advocates.
Study finds that Mexicans’ perceptions of human rights protections are linked to individuals’ evaluations of their leaders, their government and democratization.
The debate about whether or not—or how—to punish the crimes committed in Colombia’s long civil war should focus instead on the objectives punishment might achieve.
The Colombian case shows the need for flexibility in balancing the duty to prosecute international crimes with the duty to negotiate an end to the civil war.
The global human rights field is being transformed, and activists are inventing new, less hierarchical models of collaboration, including global virtual networks ...
The ICC may consider the local context, but no policy or legal decision that permits impunity for gross human rights abuse can satisfy the interests of justice.
What exactly are the “interests of justice” in the context of the ICC? And should the ICC prosecutor take conflict resolution into account, or do the interests ...
While the progressive Catholic Church is on the frontline of defending human rights in Latin American, its conservative branch still attacks reproductive rights ...
The world is watching as Brazil prepares for the World Cup and Olympics. As Northern funding for Brazilian human rights groups declines, local groups must take ...
An Islamic cleric’s gesture to the persecuted Bahá’í community in Iran shows that in countries where universal human rights standards have little local resonance, ...
Human rights groups in the global South are dependent on international funds, but those monies are dwindling for NGOs in emerging economies such as Brazil. To survive, ...
Brazil’s recent economic growth – driven by multinational corporations and supported by the government – is a source of human rights violations and perpetuates ...
There is a perverse see-saw effect in place within the BRICS countries. In Brazil, as the government grows in prominence and companies become more global and voracious, ...
Brazil’s economic success has led to foreign funders pulling the plug on human rights groups but a major education campaign is needed before Brazilian donors will ...
Using cutting-edge human rights perception polls, the authors explore links between social class and domestic human rights movements in Mexico, Colombia, Morocco, ...
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