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
Mali’s blocked transition: five years of deepening authoritarianism
3/10/2025: The military junta has dismantled Mali’s democratic foundations, five years after seizing power with promises of swift reform. Instead, sweeping decrees have outlawed political parties and dissolved all organised opposition. Civil society groups and independent media have been largely silenced.
Source: Inter Press Service
Vendetta in Democratic Republic of Congo
1/10/2025: A Congolese military court’s conviction and death sentence imposed on former President Joseph Kabila, for charges ranging from treason to war crimes, pose a threat to both the rule of law and the country’s democratic future. The military court tried Kabila in absentia and without defense counsel, in violation of the right to a fair trial under international human rights law.
Source: Human Rights Watch