Human Rights

The UN Human Rights Council has decided to appoint a Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, or a three-year period, to replace the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. This will include examining its causes and its consequences, the Special Rapporteur focus principally on aspects of contemporary forms of slavery which are not […]

The defense team for a Canadian citizen held at Guantanamo Bay on terrorist-related charges said the U.S. government withheld essential evidence in its effort to rush ahead with the tribunal in an attempt to validate its existence. Navy Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler said the government withheld information obtained from several witnesses in his defense of […]

I honestly didn't want to write anymore about toxic toys, as I felt I had covered it well enough, and there a many other issues regarding children's rights which need to be covered, however I am prompted to bring light to the newest discovery. The outcry over toy recalls has been from lead paint or […]

The United Nations Population Fund, will now benefit from the international communities efforts to make maternal health a global priority. Over the last 7 years the US has withheld funding for the agency, which was appropriated by Congress, amounting to $204 million. According to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) $34 million has been […]

The status of a Canadian citizen accused of murder, conspiracy, and other terrorist related charges will be determined by a military court Thursday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Omar Khadr, 21, will face a Military Commissions Review board to determine whether he is eligible for prosecution by the war crimes tribunal sitting at the naval detention […]

Please see Bill Hewitt's Climate Change Blog for his recent post on Children and Climate Change and the recent report issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Under Article 37(a) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, child executions are a clear violation of international law. ” [No] capital punishment… shall be imposed for offenses committed by persons below eighteen years of age” Iran Revokes Death Sentence in Juvenile Case, as Dubious Conviction Based on Recanted Testimony Requires Re-Trial […]

Can a laptop really change the future of a child in the developing world? IT professor Nicholas Negroponte, believes so, and it was his vision 5 years ago, which has now begun production. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), has it's first order to fill, thanks to Uruguay, who ordered 100,000. Some are surprised that production […]

The war crimes trail for the chairman of the Serbian Radical Party resumed at the international court in the Hague Wednesday.  Vojislav Seselj, 52, is one of the most senior officials of the government of the former Yugoslavia to face prosecution for war crimes during the Bosnian wars.  Seselj faces prosecution for murder, persecution, inhumane […]

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said he would discuss how to balance climate change and food security in the development of biofuels when he visits Brazil next week. Speaking before leaving on a trip that takes him first to Argentina, Antarctica and Punto Arenas in Chile, Ban said he wanted to see for himself […]

Lawyers for a detainee at Guantanamo Bay issued an appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court to delay his war crimes trial. Omar Khadr, a 21-year-old Canadian, faces the war crimes tribunal sitting at Guantanamo Bay for the death of a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. The appeal challenges the tribunal's authority to determine his combatant status […]