United Nations (UN)

On Thursday the 27th of October, United Nations adopted a landmark resolution to launch negotiations in 2017 on a treaty outlawing nuclear weapons.

India has the largest number of homeless and landless persons in the world, as well as the greatest number of urban and rural poor.  Shivani Chaudhry, the Executive Director of Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), argues that the New Urban Agenda must pay more attention to the human right to adequate housing. Interview with Shivani Chaudhry.

Worldwide people are exposed to serious human rights violations because of their sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI). Therefore the UN Human Rights Council has decided to appoint an independent expert on the protection of LGBTI people.

Ten years after the creation of the Yogyakarta Principles, “Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity”, Caroline Ausserer speaks with Professor Stephen Whittle, one of the experts that elaborated them.

Negotiations on a treaty declaring nuclear weapons illegal are planned for 2017. So far, Germany and others have tried to block this process, even while officially supporting a nuclear-weapon-free world. These contradictions will soon end, however: states will have to pick sides.

Currently the debate on nuclear weapons in the European Union is not making any progress, this could be due to the failure of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2015. Nevertheless, a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Europe should still be envisaged.

In the 90s and early 2000s, Canada's Liberal government begged to differ. During its international heyday, Canada became the patron of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Whatever happened to Canada's commitment to the R2P under Harper's Conservative government?

More than six million Syrian refugees are in search of a different, a safer place in their home country and yet only arrive at places that are currently slightly less ghastly.

The coming set of Sustainable Development Goals will seek to protect ecosystems, conserve resources, and, as with the Millennium Development Goals, lift millions of people out of poverty. Now that solid legal ground must be developed further.