• UK secret court plans 'dangerous precedent'
    Dec 19, 2012
    The British government's proposal to expand the use of secret court hearings in civil cases came one step closer to becoming law yesterday, raising serious concerns for human rights and the principles of open justice.
  • Welcome Kyrgyzstan’s Leader, but Speak Up about Human Rights
    Dec 11, 2012
    Strange things happen in Bishkek, the Kyrgyzstan capital. One morning this autumn the sounds of loud protests outside parliament almost drowned out conversation in our meeting nearby.
  • Living Up to the Nobel: EU Must Act on Syria
    Dec 10, 2012
    Catherine Ashton's mandate is to provide leadership on foreign policy and human rights. She has failed, however, to ensure a collective EU voice for bringing the crimes in Syria before the International Criminal Court (ICC). On 10 December, as the EU receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, EU foreign ministers meeting back in Brussels should decide to move beyond vague references to “accountability” for crimes in Syria and make clear that they support a UN Security Council referral of the situation to the ICC.
  • Back to the (Soviet) Future
    Dec 6, 2012
    While today's Russia cannot be compared to the Soviet Union, it is certainly moving in that direction. In fact, during the first seven months of Vladimir Putin's new presidency, the echo of the old times has become alarmingly strong. So strong, in fact, that the most prominent human rights defender in the country is seriously contemplating the prospect of soon landing in jail.
  • Lessons of war - the misuse of schools by militaries
    Nov 26, 2012
    The contrast was striking. Outside the laughter of boys playing echoed around the school courtyard while inside one classroom a nervous 14-year-old, Ashraf, described the day bullets and shells rained down on his school. "When they started shooting, the principal led us all to the basement," he told me.
  • A human-rights cold room - Catherine Ashton to visit Central Asia
    Nov 24, 2012
    At the height of summer, when foreign ministers adopted the European Union's new human-rights strategy, Catherine Ashton, the high representative for foreign affairs, was eloquent in promising to make these issues a core ingredient in the EU's foreign relations.
  • Too little to celebrate - Dayton Continues to Fail Bosnia’s Minorities
    Nov 21, 2012
    On November 21, 1995, the EU and US brokered the Dayton peace agreement, putting an end to the three-and-a-half-year bloody war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). The agreement failed to tackle the division that the war had wrought, though, instead establishing a loose federation along ethnic lines. The hope was that in time, as wounds healed, and with the political, military and economic support of the US and EU, a country that fully respected equality and other human rights would emerge.
  • Malta: A mandate for reform
    Nov 19, 2012
    Malta should be proud of its recent ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a crucial tool for protecting the rights of more than one billion people with disabilities worldwide. As the Government begins to integrate the convention into its laws and policies, it should understand that the protections apply to the thousands of migrants and asylum seekers who linger in immigration detention in Malta each year.
  • Relations with Rwanda must be urgently reviewed
    Nov 8, 2012
    The international development select committee (IDC) is questioning Andrew Mitchell on his controversial decision to disburse £8m of UK budget support to the government of Rwanda, in his final hours as international development secretary and just six weeks after deciding to withhold this support, following allegations of Rwandan military backing for the M23 rebel group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
  • Election 2012: Rights and Responsibility
    Nov 5, 2012
    The candidates may disagree on some human rights issues, but the next president will face challenges that transcend partisan lines.