9th August 2013
Montreal, Canada
The health and wellbeing of Indigenous communities is closely linked to connection with the environment – connecting people with place – and from the strength of culture that grows from this connectivity. For millennia, Indigenous communities read continuously and cumulatively signs of ecological wellness, and for example the health of an animal is considered in […]
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25th July 2013
Washington DC, USA
Saturday marks the 60th anniversary of the Armistice that concluded the Korean War. The Korean Peninsula was divided by American administrators along the 38th parallel following the Japanese surrender in September 1945. On 25th June 1950, North Korea invaded the South. The United States of America provided 88 per cent of the 341,000 international soldiers who aided the Republic […]
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17th June 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
As the three-week session came to a close on Friday evening, delegates looked each other in the eye with weary emotion and asked how was it for you? The general mood seemed to be that it had been a good session but that the earth didn’t move. Getting through Council sessions is as much a […]
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10th June 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
Week two of the June session is never much fun. The end is just a bit too far from sight, there’s a huge amount of fiddly sorting out still to do and almost everyone is in a ratty mood from having spent too much time together. Tempers tend to reach optimal fraying point at about […]
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3rd June 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
I’m sure the June session of the Council never used to be this busy. In years gone by it felt less like a session in its own right and more like the after show party of the March session when delegations would run a few resolutions that they didn’t quite find the time for and […]
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27th May 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
There was a time not so long ago when the Geneva sun shone happily throughout spring time, when kinder colleagues used to mistake me for an intern and the June Human Rights Council session actually began in June. This year we’ve still not managed to put our winter clothes away, a worrying number of colleagues […]
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25th March 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
The session is over, the resolutions are all adopted and UN blue smoke has finally risen through the holes in the Council ceiling. After weeks of lock down without food, daylight or other things that make us happy, the Council delegates can start to think about a return to normality. But for those afflicted by […]
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11th March 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
Strange things happen to the passage of time at the Human Rights Council. The days go on forever, the weeks feels like months and don’t get me started on what the months feel like. I’d thought this was just the inverse of time flying when you’re having fun but to make matters more confusing time […]
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8th March 2013
Atlanta, USA
These are the words of a rape survivor from the Bosnian conflict, quoted by Haja Zainab Hawa Bangura, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict at a recent meeting in London Bangura spoke about the horrific reality of war for women and girls, where war has been waged not just […]
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4th March 2013
Geneva, Switzerland
It’s not often that you go to an event at the UN and end up staying much longer than intended. Usually it’s the other way round. But this week’s high level panel on the ‘power of empowered women’ was one of the best UN discussions I’ve seen and a fitting prelude to international women’s day […]
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