Palace of Nations
The Palace of Nations in Geneva, was built between 1929 and 1938 to serve as the headquarters of the League of Nations. In 2012 alone, the Palace of Nations hosted more than 10,000 intergovernmental meetings, a jury of architects was selected to choose a final design from among three-hundred and thirty-seven entries but was unable to decide on a winner. Donations from League members were used in the interior, the Palace constituted at the time of completion, volume wise, the second-largest building complex in Europe after Versailles. After its transfer to the United Nations, two extensions were added to the building, which increased the size of the usable area of the building. Between 1950-1952, three floors were added to the K building, and the D building was constructed to house temporarily the World Health Organization, the E building was added between 1968-1973 as a conference facility, with bringing the total of conference rooms to 34. The park contains a 1668 chalet, a medal showing the Palace of Nations with the Jura Mountains in the background was struck in silvered bronze.
The building overlooks Lake Geneva and has a view of the French Alps. List of United Nations organizations by location United Nations System Joëlle Kuntz, Geneva, a History, éditions Zoé,2011,96 pages. Jean-Claude Pallas, Histoire et architecture du Palais des Nations, Nations Unies,2001,431 pages United Nations Office at Geneva Palais des Nations
Myanmar
Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and known as Burma, is a sovereign state in South East Asia bordered by Bangladesh, China and Thailand. About one third of Myanmars total perimeter of 5,876 km, forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km along the Bay of Bengal, the countrys 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres in size and its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city and former capital city is Yangon. Early civilizations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma, the Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a period the largest empire in the history of Mainland Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur. The British invaded Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the became a British colony.
Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a nation and then, following a coup détat in 1962. For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife, during this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. In 2011, the junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election. While former military leaders still wield enormous power in the country, there is, continuing criticism of the governments treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes. In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyis party won a majority in both houses, Myanmar is a country rich in jade and gems, natural gas and other mineral resources. In 2013, its GDP stood at US$56.7 billion, the income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government.
As of 2016, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar had a level of human development. The renaming remains a contested issue, many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. The countrys official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form Union of Burma instead, in English, the country is popularly known as either Burma or Myanmar /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/. Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group, Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from Bamar, the colloquial form of the groups name
United Nations Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council is a United Nations System inter-governmental body responsible for promoting and protecting human rights around the world. Its 47 seats are filled by member states elected for three-year terms, the UNHRC is the successor to the UN Commission on Human Rights, and is a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly. The council works closely with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UNHRC addresses human rights-related situations in all UN member states. The United States boycotted the Council during the George W. Bush administration, beginning in 2009 however, with the United States taking a leading role in the organization, American commentators began to argue that the UNHRC was becoming increasingly relevant. The UN General Assembly elects the members who occupy the UNHRCs 47 seats, the General Assembly takes into account the candidate States’ contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights, as well as their voluntary pledges and commitments in this regard.
The term of each seat is three years, and no member may occupy a seat for more than two consecutive terms, the resolution establishing the UNHRC states that members elected to the Council shall uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights. On 18 June 2007, one year after holding its first meeting, the UNHRC adopted its Institution-building package, among the elements was the Universal Periodic Review. The Universal Periodic Review assesses the human rights situations in all 193 UN Member States, a further element is a Complaint procedure, which allows individuals and organizations to bring complaints about human rights violations to the attention of the Council. The members of the General Assembly elect the members who occupy the UNHRCs 47 seats, the term of each seat is three years, and no member may occupy a seat for more than two consecutive terms. The previous CHR had a membership of 53 elected by the Economic and Social Council through a majority of those present, the suspension process requires a two-thirds majority vote by the General Assembly.
The UNHRC holds regular sessions three times a year, in March and September, the UNHRC can decide at any time to hold a special session to address human rights violations and emergencies, at the request of one-third of the member states. To date there have been 20 Special Sessions, Members of the UNHRC are elected to staggered three-year terms. Current Previous The first election of members was held on 9 May 2006 and their terms of office began on 19 June 2006. On 19 May, it was announced that Mexico would serve as the Councils chair during its first year of existence. 2010 Group The replacement for the 2007 Group was duly elected by the General Assembly on 17 May 2007, known as the 2010 Group, in this election and Egypt were elected to the council, whereas Belarus was rejected. 2011 Group, The replacement for the 2008 Group was duly elected by the General Assembly on 21 May 2008, known as the 2011 Group, the year when their terms expire. 2012 Group, The replacement for the 2009 Group was duly elected by the General Assembly on 12 May 2009, known as the 2012 Group, the year when their terms expire.
2013 Group, The replacement for the 2010 Group was duly elected by the General Assembly on 13 May 2010, known as the 2013 Group, the year when their terms expire
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, is a country in East Asia, constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang is both the capital as well as its largest city. To the north and northwest the country is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok, the country is bordered to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone separating the two. Negotiations on reunification failed, and in 1948 two separate governments were formed, the communist Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea in the north, an invasion initiated by North Korea led to the Korean War. The Korean Armistice Agreement brought about a ceasefire, and no peace treaty was ever signed. North Korea officially describes itself as a self-reliant socialist state and formally holds elections, critics regard it as a totalitarian dictatorship. Various outlets have called it Stalinist, particularly noting the elaborate cult of personality around Kim Il-sung, International organizations have assessed human rights violations in North Korea as belonging to a category of their own, with no parallel in the contemporary world.
Over time, North Korea has gradually distanced itself from the world communist movement, Juche, an ideology of national self-reliance, was introduced into the constitution as a creative application of Marxism–Leninism in 1972. The means of production are owned by the state through state-run enterprises, most services such as healthcare, education and food production are subsidized or state-funded. From 1994 to 1998, North Korea suffered from a famine that resulted in the deaths of between 0.24 and 3.5 million people, and the continues to struggle with food production. North Korea follows Songun, or military-first policy and it is the country with the highest number of military and paramilitary personnel, with a total of 9,495,000 active and paramilitary personnel. Its active duty army of 1.21 million is the fourth largest in the world, after China, North Korea is an atheist state with no official religion and where public religion is discouraged. The name Korea derives from the name Goryeo, the name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a shortened form of its name.
The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After the division of the country into North and South Korea, the two sides used different terms to refer to Korea, Chosun or Joseon in North Korea, in 1948, North Korea adopted Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea as its new legal name. After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan, Japan tried to suppress Korean traditions and culture and ran the economy primarily for its own benefit. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun operated along the Sino-Korean border, some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who became the leader of North Korea
Olivier De Schutter
Olivier De Schutter is a Belgian legal scholar specialising in economic and social rights. He served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014, the son of a diplomat, his primary and high school education took place in Bombay, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and Kigali, Rwanda. He studied law at the Université catholique de Louvain, Panthéon-Assas University and Harvard University and his doctoral thesis, a comparative study of the role of courts in fundamental rights adjudication, was published in French as Fonction de juger et droits fondamentaux. Transformation du contrôle juridictionnel dans les ordres juridiques américain et européens, among his books on human rights are International Human Rights Law. Cases, Commentary, initially published by Cambridge University Press in 2010 and his current work focuses on transition towards sustainable societies, in which he mobilizes various disciplines including economics, social psychology, political science, and feminist theory.
Since the mid-1990s, Olivier De Schutter has been involved in various capacities in the debates on improving governance in the EU, in 2013, he was appointed a member of the EUs Fundamental Rights Agencys Scientific Committee. This view permeates his interpretation of food sovereignty, as being primarily about food democracy and the ability for people to invent alternatives to the mainstream food system. As the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, De Schutter presents reports to the UN Human Rights Council, although he worked mainly in developing countries, he took interest in advanced economies such as Canada, conducting an 11-day formal investigation in Canada during 2012. He has been critical of land acquisitions and biofuel production in food insecure countries. A summary of his conclusions is provided in his report to the UN Human Rights Council. De Schutter is featured in Marie-Monique Robins 2012 documentary Crops of the Future, where his study of agro-ecology. The Committee meets for three each year, receiving country reports and assessing individual communications under an Optional Protocol that entered into force in May 2013.
In 2013, Olivier De Schutter was awarded the prestigious Francqui Prize, in recognition of his contributions to the theory of governance, EU law, the Prize was awarded by an international jury chaired by Harvard Professor E. Maskin, Nobel Laureate in Economics. BBC Horizon, How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth m27s19~m28s35, with David Attenborough Olivier De Schutter is married to Anne Carlier, with whom he has three children
Philip Alston
Philip G. Alston is an international law scholar and human rights practitioner. He is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law, Alston graduated from the University of Melbourne with an LL. B. in 1972 and an LL. M. in 1976 and from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. His brother is the former Australian federal Cabinet minister and High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, alstons first academic appointments were at Tufts University and Harvard Law School. Alston was Professor at the Australian National University, and director of its Center for International and he was Professor at the European University Institute, before moving to New York University School of Law, where he is the John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law. In 2015, it was announced that he would be a faculty instructor in the newly launched NYU Law Institute for Executive Education, in human rights law, Alston has held a range of senior UN appointments for over two decades. From 1987 to 1991 he was the first Rapporteur for the UN Committee on Economic and Cultural Rights, he chaired the Committee from 1991 to 1998.
At the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights he was elected to chair the first meeting of the presidents and Chairs of all of the human rights courts. He was appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General in 1988 to suggest reforms to make the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring system more effective and his other United Nations appointments include Special Adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Millennium Development Goals. He was appointed to that post by Sergio Vieira de Mello and he has been actively involved in the field of childrens rights and the legal adviser to UNICEF throughout the period of the drafting of the U. N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and he published two studies for UNICEF on childrens rights. The first was The Best Interests of the Child, Reconciling Culture and Human Rights, from August 2004 – July 2010 he was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. In that capacity he reported to the UN Human Rights Council, in 2014, Alston was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights.
In late October 2016, Alston released a report to the UN General Assembly. The report criticized the flawed and unfounded advice given by the UNs Office of Legal Affairs, according to Alston, “The UN’s explicit and unqualified denial of anything other than a moral responsibility is a disgrace. If the United Nations bluntly refuses to hold accountable for human rights violations, it makes a mockery of its efforts to hold governments. Alston directed a project funded by the European Commission, which resulted in the publication of a Human Rights Agenda for the European Union for the Year 2000, many of its recommendations were subsequently implemented by the European Commission and the European Council. He is one of 29 signatories to the Yogyakarta Principles and he is one of the authors of a textbook in the field entitled International Human Rights in Context, Politics, published by Oxford University Press. A third edition was published in 2007, philip Alston, Record AfPak Drone Attacks Under Obama May Violate International Law – video report by Democracy Now
Ahmed Shaheed
Ahmed Shaheed ޝަހީދު is a Maldivian diplomat and politician and an expert on human rights and advocate for democracy. On 24 March 2016, he was appointed for the year running as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Dr Shaheed is the Chairperson of the Geneva-based international human rights think-tank, Universal Rights Group, prior to his appointment as a UN envoy with the rank of Assistant Secretary General, he was a Maldivian politician and human rights defender. The Islamic Republic of Iran has refused him entry into the country and has declared him to be an agent of both the CIA and Israel, a career diplomat since 1982, Shaheed served as the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Maldives from 1998-2004. Prior to his appointment as Permanent Secretary, he had served, from 1997–98, as a member of the Group of South Asian Eminent Persons, appointed by the Heads of State of the South Asian region. In July 2005, Shaheed used his position as Government Spokesperson to reject the condemnation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the Chief Justice of the Maldives.
The Opposition MDP accused him of being the chief doctor for President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom while independent human rights NGOs such as Hama Jamiyya hail him as a champion of human rights. He is one of the co-founders of New Maldives, a group within the former regime who spearheaded the drive to make the Maldives a modern liberal democracy, Shaheed is the founder of the Open Society Association dedicated to the promotion of human rights and democracy. Although a very high profile sponsor of the DRP, he was defeated in his bid to win the Vice Presidency of the Party in April 2006, their campaigning against the Gayoom regime was instrumental in forcing a free and fair election. He claimed credit for the establishment of the Maldives Human Rights Commission in accordance with the Paris Principles, Shaheed said that a conservative guard within the parliament and cabinet was resisting reform. In his resignation statement he called on the President to step down voluntarily, after Gayoom was defeated in the October 2008 presidential election, his successor, Mohamed Nasheed, reappointed Shaheed as Foreign Minister in November 2008.
An advocate of close security ties with India, he was widely criticized by pro-Pakistani Islamist elements. Amnesty Internationals Annual Report in 2011 described Dr Shaheed as the human rights defender in the Maldives. In May 2010, Maldives was elected to the UN Human Rights Council, in June 17,2011 Shaheed was elected as Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights Situation in Iran by the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. However, for the first time since 2011, the Maldives, with Abdulla Yameen as President, refused to back Shaheeds re-appointment in 2014 as UN envoy, despite public appeals from Iranian civil society. Living in self-imposed exile since the coup détat of February 2012, Shaheed has been a campaigner for the restoration of democracy. He has active on the international stage advocating human rights protection in Islamic societies, supporting freedom of religion. The official newspaper of the Islamist party in Maldives declared in February that Shaheed was the foremost apostate in Maldives, in April 2013, Shaheed was a Guest of Honour at the launch of the launch of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Offices 2012 Human Rights and Democracy Report
Human rights
Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They are applicable everywhere and at time in the sense of being universal. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on circumstances, for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture. The doctrine of human rights has been influential within international law. Actions by states and non-governmental organizations form a basis of public policy worldwide, the idea of human rights suggests that if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights. The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights.
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom. All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. According to Jack Donnelly, in the ancient world, traditional societies typically have had elaborate systems of duties, conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights. These institutions and practices are alternative to, rather than different formulations of, one theory is that human rights were developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics. The most commonly held view is that the concept of human rights evolved in the West, for example, McIntyre argues there is no word for right in any language before 1400. One of the oldest records of rights is the statute of Kalisz, giving privileges to the Jewish minority in the Kingdom of Poland such as protection from discrimination.
Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship. The earliest conceptualization of human rights is credited to ideas about natural rights emanating from natural law, in particular, the issue of universal rights was introduced by the examination of extending rights to indigenous peoples by Spanish clerics, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. These were followed by developments in philosophy of human rights by philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, hegel during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742, in the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery
Sudan
Sudan, known as North Sudan since South Sudans independence and officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northern Africa. It is the third largest country in Africa, the River Nile divides the country into eastern and western halves. Before the Sudanese Civil War, South Sudan was part of Sudan, Sudan was home to numerous ancient civilizations, such as the Kingdom of Kush, Nobatia, Makuria, Meroë and others, most of which flourished along the Nile. During the pre-dynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were identical, by virtue of its proximity to Egypt, the Sudan participated in the wider history of the Near East inasmuch as it was Christianized by the 6th century, and Islamized in the 15th. As a result of Christianization, the Old Nubian language stands as the oldest recorded Nilo-Saharan language, Sudan was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world until 2011, when South Sudan separated into an independent country, following an independence referendum. Sudan is now the third largest country in Africa and the third largest country in the Arab world and its capital is Khartoum, the political and commercial centre of the nation.
It is a representative democratic federal republic. The politics of Sudan are regulated by an organization called the National Assembly. The Sudanese legal system is based on Islamic law, the countrys place name Sudan is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān, or the lands of the Blacks, during the fifth millennium BC migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed social hierarchy over the centuries become the Kingdom of Kush at 1700 BC. The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and it was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, centered at Napata in its early phase. After King Kashta invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians.
At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as South Kordofan all the way to the Sinai, pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East, but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II. Sennacheribs successor Esarhaddon went further, and invaded Egypt itself, deposing Taharqa, Taharqa fled back to his homeland where he died two years later. Egypt became an Assyrian colony, king Tantamani, after succeeding Taharqa, Esarhaddon died while preparing to leave the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in order to eject him. However, his successor Ashurbanipal sent an army into southern Egypt and routed Tantamani. During Classical Antiquity, the Nubian capital was at Meroë, in ancient Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia
Fatsah Ouguergouz
Dr. Fatsah Ouguergouz is an Algerian national born in France. He is a Justice of the African Court of Human and Peoples Rights since 2006 and he has been elected Judge in 2006 by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union and reelected in 2010 for a six-year mandate. He holds a Ph. D in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies and he previously held several other positions within or outside the United Nations, such as, Legal Officer, International Court of Justice Human Rights Officer in Rwanda. United Nations, Rwanda Associate Legal Officer, United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, New York City Lecturer, senior Lecturer, American Bar Association, Rule of Law Initiative, Training of 60 Algerian Lawyers and Judges and Oran. Lecturer, 34th Session of the External Programme of The Hague Academy of International Law, Lecturer, 29th, 30th and 40th Study Sessions of the International Institute of Human Rights. - Lecturer, Study Session of the International Institute of Human Rights
