• UNESCO: Stop Discredited Prize
    Press release
    Sep 26, 2011

    UNESCO should reject a new bid to honor Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea and now Africa's longest serving ruler, with a prize in his name. The prize was suspended last year after an outcry from concerned Equatoguineans, human rights groups, anti-corruption campaigners, and prominent literary, scientific, and cultural figures.

  • UN: A Move to Support Rights-Respecting Businesses
    Written statement
    Jul 11, 2011

    Candidates for a UN Human Rights Council working group to develop human rights standards for transnational corporations and other businesses should have substantial human rights expertise and meet high standards for impartiality and integrity. A coalition of civil society groups including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Commission of Jurists, and Rights & Accountability in Development proposed guidelines to the Human Rights Council to help in its selection of the expert panel.

  • Responsible Mining: Companies Can't Go it Alone
    Commentary
    Feb 10, 2011

    Human Rights Watch recently released a report that details brutal gang rapes and other abuses allegedly carried out by employees of Barrick Gold in Papua New Guinea. Barrick, a Canadian firm, is the world's largest gold producer and Porgera is one of the world's largest gold mines. Now the company is scrambling to put things right, investing in new mechanisms for oversight and accountability and firing some of its private security personnel while others are being hauled away by the police.

  • Papua New Guinea: Serious Abuses at Barrick Gold Mine
    Press release
    Feb 1, 2011
    Private security personnel employed at a gold mine in Papua New Guinea have been implicated in alleged gang rapes and other violent abuses, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The Porgera mine has produced billions of dollars of gold in its twenty years of operation, and  is operated and 95 percent owned by Barrick Gold, a Canadian company that is the world's largest gold producer.
  • Letter to Secretary Clinton One Year After Historic Internet Speech
    Letter
    Jan 31, 2011
    One year ago, in a groundbreaking speech, you declared the "freedom to connect" to be a Fifth Freedom, as important to human liberty as the Four Freedoms Franklin D. Roosevelt championed 70 years ago this month. The Internet will be what we make of it, you said, and you challenged governments and companies alike to ensure that a person' s access to information and opinion does not depend on where she lives.
  • US: Promote Global Financial Transparency at G20 Summit
    Press release
    Nov 8, 2010
    The United States should press for greater transparency and accountability in the global financial system at the G20 Summit meeting in Seoul, a coalition of civil society organizations said today. The G20 Advocacy Coalition brings together varied organizations that share the view that increased transparency is essential to promoting economic development, alleviating poverty, and realizing enjoyment of economic and social rights.
  • Canada: Ignatieff Has Some Explaining to Do
    Commentary
    Nov 4, 2010
    It was not surprising that last week Stephen Harper's government defeated a modest opposition private member's bill that offered an opportunity to improve the human rights records of Canadian oil, mining and gas companies. But the apparently ambiguous stance of opposition leader Michael Ignatieff on the bill came as a surprise to many -- and leaves him with some explaining to do.
  • US: Review of the National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
    Testimony
    Nov 3, 2010
  • Kimberley Process: Demand End to Abuses in Diamond Trade
    Press release
    Nov 1, 2010
    The Kimberley Process Certification Scheme should not allow further exports from the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe until the government makes clear progress in ending abuses and smuggling. Participants in the scheme, an international body that oversees the diamond trade, are scheduled to meet in Jerusalem from November 1 to 4, 2010.
  • A Corrupt Dictator Tries to Buy UNESCO's Brand Name
    Commentary
    Oct 15, 2010
    The UNESCO Executive Committee meeting at the organization's headquarters in Paris soon will have to make a decision about a very controversial Prize, the UNESCO-Teodoro Obiang Award for the protection of life. This prize is funded by Obiang, for 31 years the dictatorial President of Equatorial Guinea, who is trying to use Unesco's values and reputation to improve his international image. In June, UNESCO postponed an award ceremony after an international uproar over the planned "dictator prize."