Policy report

Protecting the Frontline: Good practices for Recognising and Supporting Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Across the world, environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) have been catalysing actions to safeguard a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Their work has been crucial to the protection and respect of their human rights, the rights of their communities, and,…

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Policy report

Understanding human rights related to the environment: exploring their scope and implications

The objective of this document is to provide information about the status and scope of human rights related to the environment to States, United Nations entities, other intergovernmental organizations, civil society, and the private sector. It aims to support their…

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Policy report

The emergence and evolution of National Mechanisms for Implementation, Reporting, and Follow-up

This report addresses one great unanswered question: how do States implement the recommendations they receive from the three main UN human rights mechanisms, thereby bringing national laws, policies, and practices into ever greater alignment with their obligations under IHRL?

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Policy report

Guide to the 2023 UN Human Rights Council Elections

The ninth annual yourHRC.org Guide to the Human Rights Council elections provides comprehensive at-a-glance information on the 2023 Council elections (which are scheduled to take place on 10 October at the General Assembly in New York), when States from all…

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Policy report

From reaction to prevention: report of transatlantic roundtable on prevention

Meeting report

This report summarises the transatlantic dialogue on prevention organised by International Crisis Group and the Universal Rights Group, in collaboration with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on 20th February 2023.

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Policy report

For people; for planet: The long and winding road to UN recognition of the universal right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment

This report seeks to tell the story of the journey towards the recognition of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment (R2E) and address the three interlinked environmental crises facing the planet – the climate, biodiversity, and pollution…

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Policy report

Advancing Rights, Transforming Lives

This report reviews how the UN human rights system has taken up women’s rights, gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights and the degree to which these recommendations have been translated into action, with UNFPA’s support.

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Policy report

Unpacking the Right to a Healthy Environment: How national and regional laws and jurisprudence clarify the scope and content of the universal right

This report examines this body of practice, namely the features and best practices associated with the global implementation of the right to a healthy environment.

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Policy report

'A diamond in the rough’: how to strengthen the Human Rights Council's delivery of technical assistance and capacity building (Item 10 reform)

The policy brief provides thoughts on how the Council might strengthen the delivery of domestic capacity-building support in the future – how it might ‘reset and revitalize item 10.’

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Tool

What is the state of human rights and democracy around the world?

Is the situation of human rights around the world getting better or worse? Which UN member States are fulfilling their human rights obligations, and which are routinely violating the rights of their people? Is democracy really in retreat around the…

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Video

The urgent need to defend Environmental Human Rights Defenders

This video is a compilation of the voices and personal journeys of brave EHRDs from Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific.

URG Insights

Is the Tide Turning? How states vote on Africa-focused resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council

by Nicolas Agostini, Representative to the United Nations for DefendDefenders, Hassan Shire, Executive Director of DefendDefenders (the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project) and the Chairperson of AfricanDefenders (the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network), based in Kampala, Uganda

Since the opening of DefendDefenders' Geneva office, in 2018, we have engaged in advocacy with the UN human rights system and brought dozens of human rights defenders (HRDs) to the Palais des Nations. We have also made a deliberate effort to produce reports on multilateral dynamics. Many of our mandate countries – including Burundi, Eritrea, South Sudan, and Sudan – are on the agenda of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). The research effort behind our latest report originates in the will of our staff and HRD partners to better understand the politics around resolutions on African countries. It also comes from a form…

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Latest policy report

May 2024

Protecting the Frontline: Good practices for Recognising and Supporting Environmental Human Rights Defenders

Protecting the Frontline: Good practices for Recognising and Supporting Environmental Human Rights Defenders report cover

Across the world, environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs) have been catalysing actions to safeguard a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Their work has been crucial…

Download View online

Previous policy reports

Understanding human rights related to the environment: exploring their scope and implications

The objective of this document is to provide information about the status and scope of human rights related to the environment to States, United Nations…

Read more

The emergence and evolution of National Mechanisms for Implementation, Reporting, and Follow-up

Universal Rights Group's groundbreaking new policy report on national mechanisms for implementation, reporting, and follow-up (NMIRFs) addresses head-on, and for the first time, one of…

Read more

The Human Rights Council in 2023

What were the main developments, achievements and flash-points at the Human Rights Council in 2023? What were the Council’s principle outputs and what kind of…

Read more

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past events

FX 22 - How to operationalise the Human Rights Council’s prevention mandate - the eyes, ears, and outreached hand of the UN system

GA resolution 60/251 founding the Council and setting out its mandate makes clear that it shall ‘contribute, through dialogue and cooperation, towards the prevention of human rights violations and respond promptly to human rights emergencies,’ (operative paragraph 5f). However, for...

  • May 31, 2024 - 13:00 - 15:00
  • The Danish UN Residence / Chambésy
  • By invitation only

Consultations for civil society and other stakeholders in Tanzania to share good practices on leveraging State engagement with the UN human rights mechanisms to advance SRHR

URG proposes to organise a workshop/consultation with Tanzanian civil society, the national human rights institution, and the media, to provide a space for frank dialogue under the Chatham House rule, where participants can share views, good practices and the challenges...

  • May 28, 2024 - 9:00 - 14:00
  • Seashells Millennium Hotel, Dar es Salaam / Dar es Salaam
  • By invitation only
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The Inside Track: HRC56

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The Istanbul Process is a mechanism for follow-up on the implementation of the Human Rights Council plan to combat religious intolerance.

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Impact OSS is a data management tool that helps States manage recommendations received from UN human rights mechanisms.

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ALLIED is a network of civil society actors (83 organisations and 180 individuals) working to protect, celebrate, recognise and support ILEDs throughout the world.

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