European banks ignore supply chain ethics in mining investment
17/11/2025: Between 2016 and 2024, EU banks provided €64 billion in loans and underwriting services for extracting raw materials for the green transition. Oxfam has exposed these investments as linked to land grabs, pollution and human rights violations. This disclosure coincides with EU proposals to dismantle its sustainability rules.
Source: Oxfam International
Myanmar’s election theatre of the democratic absurd
17/11/2025: After more than four years of civil war, Myanmar’s military junta plans to hold elections next month. Opposition parties are banned, leaders are imprisoned and the system has been redesigned to guarantee victory for those aligned with the military. Endorsing these elections would normalise military coups and legitimise war crimes.
Source: East Asia Forum
Call to strengthen global rules to protect gig workers
14/11/2025: Human Rights Watch has called on governments negotiating a new global treaty on gig work to strengthen the draft text to protect workers from exploitative management. Too many digital platform workers are being denied their human rights, including pay below the minimum wage and the use of unaccountable algorithms to evade employer responsibilities.
Source: Human Rights Watch
US skips UN periodic rights review
7/11/2025: The US has missed the deadline to participate in its UN Universal Periodic Review, a process where the human rights record of every member state is reviewed by other states. No UN member state has failed to be reviewed since its creation in 2006.
Source: Human Rights Watch
Killings and crackdown follow disputed elections in Tanzania
4/11/2025: Human Rights Watch alleges that the Tanzanian authorities’ violent response to election-related protests further undermines the credibility of the electoral process, in which the incumbent president gained 98 percent of the vote. It appears that no journalists working for international media were pemitted to cover the elections.
Source: Human Rights Watch
As civil society is silenced, corruption and inequality rise
31/10/2025: A research partnership between over 20 organizations tracking civic freedoms finds that civil society is under attack in 116 of 198 countries and territories. When civil society attempts to expose corrupt relationships within authoritarian regimes, it becomes a target.
Source: Inter Press Service
US strikes in Caribbean and Pacific breach international law, says UN rights chief
31/10/2025: US airstrikes against alleged drug trafficking boats has drawn sharp criticism from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. The Commissioner asserts that illicit drug trafficking is a law-enforcement matter, for which the use of lethal force is lawful only as a last resort.
Source: UN News
Russia and China accused of damaging UN human rights funding
22/10/2025: A new report describes a systematic campaign spearheaded by China and Russia to chip away at the UN’s human rights machinery — particularly targeting investigations into abuses in countries like Venezuela and North Korea — by cutting off UN funding.
Source: PassBlue
Nepal’s Gen Z protests are a call for democratic renewal
22/10/2025: The collapse of the regime in Nepal is a reminder that governments must listen to their citizens. State brutality against peaceful protestors is indefensible and self-defeating. Nothing is more corrosive to a democratic regime than suppressing citizens’ right to peacefully protest.
Source: East Asia Forum
Nobel Peace Prize winner welcomed by UN Rights Office
10/10/2025: Opposition leader Maria Machado has won the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work promoting the Venezuelan people’s democratic hopes. The High Commissioner for Human Rights has consistently spoken out in support of her values.
Source: UN News