Category: UN INSIDER

By J Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – The United Nations has extended an enthusiastic welcome to The Norwegian Nobel Committee‘s announcement that it has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and […]

By Jeanette Richter NEW YORK (IDN) – The UN Security Council Resolution1325 (UNSCR 1325), initiated by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations as the President of the Security Council in March 2000, drew the focus of a side event on the margins of the 73rd UN General Assembly […]

By J Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – Brazil, Germany, India and Japan – also known as the G4 – have reiterated the compelling need for a protracted reform of the United Nations Security Council and restated their support for Africa’s appropriate representation in a reformed and expanded Council, which under the UN Charter bears primary […]

By J Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley has announced that President Donald Trump will chair a Security Council meeting on Iran later this month to spotlight its “violations of international law” during the high-level week of the UN General Assembly. Haley who holds the Council’s rotating monthly presidency said, Trump will […]

By J Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – The widespread deployment of lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) – commonly known as “killer robots” – capable of operating with minimal human oversight, is likely to transform the future battlefield, accelerating the pace of fighting and delegating many critical battle decisions to machines, the Arms Control Association (ACA) […]

By Jamshed Baruah GENEVA (IDN) – Sri Lanka has taken over the Presidency of the landmark Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) ten years after it was adopted, at the end of the Eighth Meeting of States Parties (8MSP) in Geneva from September 3-5, 2018. CCM is a legally binding international treaty that prohibits all use, […]

By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN (IDN) – More than 17 million people across north-eastern Nigeria and parts of Cameroon, Chad and Niger, comprising the Lake Chad region, are facing a complex crisis driven by extreme poverty, climate change and violent conflict compounded by the terrorist activities of Boko Haram, a jihadist militant organization. As a result, […]

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) – When colonial powers redrew borders in Africa and picked choice lands for themselves and less desirable land for everyone else, some of those deals remained through this century. Few were undone. A case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will decide if colonial deals […]

By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK (IDN) – Four months before Kazakhstan’s eventful two-year non-permanent membership of the Security Council comes to an end, the Central Asian Republic continues to make its presence felt in an organ of the United Nations, which has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. 2018 began […]

By Jaya Ramachandran GENEVA (IDN) – A new United Nations report warns that “in a wide variety of countries,” both physical violence and legal prosecution are used against Indigenous Peoples defending their rights and lands. They are “criminalized”. The report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, to the […]