UN Watch

Human Rights Day Marred by Election of Slave-holding Mauritania as VP of UN Human Rights Council

"Human Rights Day Marred by Election of Slave-holding Mauritania as VP of UN Human Rights Council" UN Watch.org GENEVA, Dec. 10 – UN Watch condemned today's election of Mauritania, a country that allows 800,000 of its citizens to live as slaves, as Vice-President of the UN Human Rights Council.

Despite Military Atrocities, Ivory Coast Elected as UN Disarmament Commission Vice-Chair

GENEVA, Dec. 5, 2012 -- Despite massive abuses by its military recently committed during a brutal crackdown, Côte d’Ivoire was elected yesterday by the UN to serve as Vice-Chair of its Disarmament Commission, a decision eliciting sharp protest from the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, which called for the move to be reversed.

UN Conspires to Expel Prominent Jewish Group from Palestine Vote

This article by Joel Pollak appears on Breitbart. For kick-off day and the vote at the General Assembly, which is supposed to be all about mutual respect and coexistence, “Palestine” has teamed up with the “UN Division for Palestinian Rights” and UN officials to pack the Assembly hall with Palestine supporters while denying access to a prominent Jewish organization.

U.S. to Legitimize U.N. Human Rights Council for Three More Years

This article by Anne Bayefsky appears on National Review Online. The Obama administration was reelected today for a second three-year term to the U.N.’s top human-rights body, the Human Rights Council, with substantially fewer votes than human-rights heavyweights United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, Côte d’Ivoire, Venezuela, and Pakistan. Moreover, fewer than half of Council members now poised to begin applying democratic standards to the rest of the world, are themselves “fully free,” according to Freedom House rankings.

40 MPs & NGOs protest Chavez election today to U.N.‘s top rights body

GENEVA, -- Forty parliamentarians and human rights activists from 19 different countries ended their protest campaign today, in a failure to get the U.S. or the EU to even verbally oppose Venezuela's bid for a seat on the U.N.'s top rights body, and they circulated a resolution to condemn the Chavez government for gross violations.

U.N. Election Tomorrow: Chavez & Pakistan to Win, But U.S. May Lose, U.N. Human Rights Council Seats

NEW YORK, -- As the U.N. prepares to name 18 nations tomorrow to its highest human rights body, in an election where the U.S. may lose, human rights groups warned that Pakistan, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, and the United Arab Emirates -- all of whose candidacies are uncontested and therefore virtually guaranteed -- are unfit under the U.N.'s own membership criteria, while the qualifications of Kenya and Sierra Leone were "questionable." Click here for full report PDF -- Executive summary below.

Outrage: U.N. Elects Genocidal Sudan to Top Human Rights Body

NEW YORK, -- UN Watch, the Geneva-based non-governmental human rights group, called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon, rights commissioner Navi Pillay, U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice and the EU’s Catherine Ashton to condemn today’s U.N. election of “genocidal, misogynistic and repressive” Sudan to its 54-member Economic and Social Council, a top U.N. body that regulates human rights groups, shapes the composition of key U.N. women’s rights bodies, and adopts resolutions on areas from Internet freedom to female genital mutilation.

Pakistan’s UN Review Today Prompts Global Appeal Opposing its Nov. 12 Bid to Join UN Rights Council

GENEVA, October 30, 2012-- As the UN Human Rights Council prepared to review Pakistan today in Geneva, the non-governmental group UN Watch took the following actions today:

1. UN Watch published a new 16-page report,"In Praise of Pakistan," demonstrating how the last Council review of Pakistan in 2008 was "a missed opportunity," and expressed alarm that many countries would repeat the same politicized behavior and again fail to conduct a genuine review in today's session;
2. UN Watch distributed an international appeal by 40 MPs and NGOs (see text below) opposing Pakistan’s bid for Nov. 12th to join the 47-nation body;
3. UN Watch circulated a draft UN resolution to condemn Pakistani abuses; and
4. UN Watch opened a webpage dedicated to defeating Pakistan's candidacy: (Link)

UK protests to UN over top official’s “anti-Semitic” remarks

GENEVA, -- UN Watch, a non-governmental Geneva-based monitoring group, commended the British government for protesting to the U.N. over “anti-Semitic” remarks made by one of its top officials, and urged the U.S., France, Germany and other democracies to do the same today during the U.N. General Assembly's annual debate with Richard Falk, the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur mandated to investigate “Israel’s violations of the bases and principles of international law.”

U.N. Wrong to Reject New Evidence It Caused Haiti’s Cholera Epidemic

Expert Repudiates U.N. Report, says world body is culpable

Geneva, – The U.N. needs to reopen its 2011 investigation into Haiti’s cholera epidemic in light of new evidence from one of the investigating scientists that points to U.N. culpability for the outbreak, a catastrophe that has already killed 7,500 and sickened more than 300,000, said UN Watch, a non-governmental watchdog group based in Geneva.

UN rights council criticized for featuring allegedly corrupt official on today’s Nelson Mandel

GENEVA, -- The participation of the UN’s top intellectual property official on today’s Human Rights Council panel for Nelson Mandela International Day is being criticized by UN Watch in light of revelations that his agency shipped embargoed technology to North Korea and Iran, and accusations of misconduct including vote-buying, as reported by Reuters.

Shamed Sudan Pulls Out After Campaign by Human Right NGOs led by Mia Farrow

Group now shifts focus to candidacies of Venezuela and Pakistan GENEVA, Sept. 3 - In a rare victory for activists seeking to bar abuser states from the U.N. Human Rights Council, Sudan dropped its bid following a massive NGO campaign chaired by Mia Farrow and organized by the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch.

Mia Farrow Heads Campaign to Block Sudan from UN Rights Council

GENEVA, –Mia Farrow, film star and longtime advocate for victims in Darfur, heads a campaign of human rights activists that today launched a legal, diplomatic and online campaign to stop Sudan’s controversial bid for a seat on the world’s highest human rights body, in elections to be held on Nov. 12th.