The negotiations for finding a permanent solution for public stockpiling for food security in developing countries by July 31 are underway in the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO) with fr
Leilani Farha is UN’s special rapporteur (SR) on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context. Sh
Jehangir Khan is the director of Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) and the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT) in the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) in the UN Secretari
The UN co-hosted a high-level conference in Geneva on preventing violent extremism (PVE) on April 7 and 8. The conference drew some 30 government ministers, including the foreign ministers of Belgi
The world’s most important diplomatic post is up for grabs. The process of selecting the next UN secretary-general (UNSG) has already begun. However, despite the fact that the final selection
Switzerland continues to be the most innovative country while India comes 66th in a new UN report that ranks 128 countries on their annual innovative capabilities. The ninth
A woman was woken by the army in the middle of the night after a 500-pound bomb was discovered a few hundred feet from her home in a leafy neighbourhood in London. This was in August 2015. The bomb
How effective is the Mine Ban Treaty since most of the big states like the US, Russia, India, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are not yet signatories to it? With 16
How effective is the Mine Ban Treaty since most of the big states are not yet signatories to it? The Mine Ban Treaty has created a very strong norm on the prohibitio
The inevitable has happened albeit a tad sooner than expected. US president-elect Donald Trump has clashed with the UN even before he has assumed office promising that “things will be differe
US president Donald Trump may have seized the job of running the world’s most powerful government with a promise of bringing work back to American shores, but if international predictions are
The governing body of the UN’s health agency that sets the agenda of work on global health met late January. In its 140th session, the executive board (EB) of the World Health Organisation (W
The major upsetting of political apple carts globally in the past year has serious ramifications for multilateral establishments. With increasing clamour against immigrants and “unfair”
Tobeka Daki, a single South African mother and health activist from the eastern Cape, died fighting breast cancer in November last year. Her oncologist had told Tobeka that she needed trast
Joseph A Cannataci is the UN’s first and current special rapporteur for the right to privacy appointed by the Human Rights Council (HRC) in July 2015. His appointment came with grow
As the 59 American Tomahawk missiles lit up the dark skies, smashing Syria’s Shayrat air base near Homs, the collective conscience of the “civilised world” was assuaged. S
A giant yellow inflatable schistosomiasis worm, with ‘Making Schistory’ printed on it, floated on Lake Geneva, marking the five years since the London Declaration on neglected tropical
The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted the report of India’s human rights record review on May 9. There were 250 recommendations by 103 countries that had taken the floor five days earli
“Call me Tedros,” the newly elected director-general (DG) of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a Chinese reporter at a press conference held aft
In a world that sees far-from-perfect global healthcare systems, lack of access to cancer treatment – a disease which currently is the second leading cause of death – is the most
The seventh round of the Syria peace talks will begin on July 10 in Geneva which will be convened by the UN special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura. Violence and persecution in places l
“Voting has been completed. The machine is locked,” announced the secretary conducting the voting process for the adoption of a UN treaty at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
A forgotten war tucked away in the southern-most part of west Asia has begot one of the worst humanitarian disasters the world has seen. An international aid agencies’ report says that Yemen
