GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – US Ambassador to the UN Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe used unusually strong words in a statement issued Friday 8 July to suggest that UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk should step down, saying that “his continued status as a UN mandate holder is a blight on the UN system”.
The US and Falk have tangled several times over his stance on Israel and Palestine, but Chamberlain Donahoe’s criticism Friday focuses tightly on Falk’s personal blog, which has been under fire for an anti-semitic cartoon. “I am repulsed by the recent cartoon posting to the personal blog written by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on ‘the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.’, the ambassador’s statement says. “Mr. Falk’s continued comments and postings to his personal blog are deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms.”
Falk for his part says he was unaware until it was pointed out to him the anti-semitic nature of the cartoon, which he then removed from his blog.
(video) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay Wednesday said at a press briefing in Geneva that she is sending a team to Tunisia. “”Human rights abuses were at the heart of Tunisia’s problems. Therefore, human rights must be right at the forefront of the solutions to those problems,” she told reporters.
Her office in Geneva has received reports that more than 100 people died from violence in Tunisia in the past five weeks, from live fire and suicides.
“We all hope this will be the start of a new Tunisia,” she said, adding that “However, it is by no means a certainty.”
Navi Pillay’s statement
Title: Human rights investigations and their methodologies
Location: Geneva, Graduate Institute
Link out: Click here
Description: Lecture by Navanethem Pillay, UN high commissioner for human rights
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2010-02-24
Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has issued a call to abolish the death sentence, as a new US report shows that its use is decreasing there and that several states are considering ending its use. The 20th anniversary of the international death penalty treaty was marked by Pillay’s appeal in Geneva. The treaty calls for the universal abolition of capital punishment. Pillay’s office says that 140 countries no longer carry out the death penalty, and 72 countries have ratified the treaty’s Optional Protocol, which bars the death penalty.
The Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), a monitoring group in Washington, DC in the US, shows in its annual report that 106 death sentences were issued in the US in 2009, down from a post-1976 high of 328 in 1994.
Minaret ban is not just an image problem for Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland risks being found non-compliant with its obligations under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, according to the UN Committee of Human Rights. The committee voiced concern about the political campaign to ban minarets 3 November, and said then that the anti-minaret ban initiative, if adopted, would conflict with three articles of the treaty.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says she “regrets” the anti-minaret vote in Switzerland, noting that such a ban is “discriminatory and deeply divisive” and risks putting Swiss law at odds with its international treaty obligations. She was speaking Tuesday 1 December after Sunday’s vote to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland.
Asst Secretary of State, Esther Brimmer © 2009 United States Mission
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Esther Brimmer, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, addressed the UN Human Rights Council as US representative, and announced 14 September that the US was committed to ensuring the council’s operational independence.
She pointed out that the US is already the council’s top donor, and that the US would continue to support the technical assistance programmes of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights worldwide. Brimmer added that the US record on human rights was not perfect, and that the US looked forward to its universal periodic review (UPR), a review mechanism that aims to improve the human rights situation in all 192 UN member states.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Pillay, Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The “extra-judiciary” deaths of at least two Islamist leaders in captivity during July 2009 fighting in northern Nigeria prompted top leaders from the country to visit Geneva 15-16 August to apologize to the United Nations and plea with UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay, reports African newspaper the Daily Trust. The federal delegation is seeking to avoid UN sanctions over the killings of Boko Haram leaders by government forces in July. The group reportedly told Pillay that “severe efforts will be made to bring those responsible for those horrendous crime to book”, Ewubrae told journalists in Nigeria.
