Human Rights

COP28 hosts the United Arab Emirates has ignored calls from international civil society to demonstrate its respect for human rights as it refused to release imprisoned dissidents, Amnesty International said. The Emirati government’s legislation and practices impose severe restrictions on the r

More than 1,070 members of the legal profession have called on the UK government to press for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank and to take urgent steps to ensure the UK government does not violate international humanitarian law or aid or assist its violation by others. The letter, or

An examination of Scotland’s equality and human rights landscape over the last five years has been published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The Equality and Human Rights Monitor report assesses the state of equality and human rights across Britain. Specific findings from S

The Law Society of Scotland has confirmed its support for new legislation to enhance the legal protection of human rights, while warning of significant hurdles to successful implementation. The professional body for Scottish solicitors has now made a detailed submission to the Scottish government&rs

The Scottish Human Rights Commission recommends that careful consideration is given to the legal approach to achieving the new Human Rights Bill, in a consultation response to the Scottish government. The commission has set out its position on the proposed Human Rights Bill in a series of three repo

Disabled people in Scotland are experiencing "unrelenting attacks on their human rights", a number of organisations have told the United Nations. Two parallel reports for the UN highlight worsening poverty rates for disabled people in Scotland and how the cost of living is affecting their ability to

Extensive war crimes are being committed in Sudan as the conflict between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) ravages the country, Amnesty International said in a new report. The report, Death Came To Our Home: War Crimes and Civilian Suffering In Sudan, documents mass civ

The International Bar Association (IBA) and the Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA) have joined forces to monitor war crime trials in courts in Kyiv and Kharkiv Oblasts from July until the end of September 2023. The monitoring will be delivered as part of the United States Agency for International Devel

A dozen Caribbean countries are considering asking the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to issue an advisory opinion on the issue of reparations for the slave-trade and European colonial violence. Ralph Gonsalves, president of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), told Th

Caster Semenya, two-time 800m Olympic champion, faced discrimination due to rules requiring her to reduce her naturally high testosterone levels to continue competing, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled. Ms Semenya has a condition causing higher testosterone levels than most women.

The Scottish Human Rights Commission has urged peers to challenge the Illegal Migration Bill as it moves to its second reading in the House of Lords today. The characterisation of those arriving by irregular means as "illegal entrants" ignores the fact there are no safe or legal routes ava

People with disabilities living in displacement camps after the devastating earthquakes in Türkiye are being overlooked in the humanitarian response to the disaster, Amnesty International has said in a new report. The report, 'We all need dignity’: The exclusion of persons with disabiliti

UK government plans to impose minimum service levels on public services during strike action are likely to be incompatible with human rights law in their current form, Westminster's Joint Committee on Human Rights has found. In a report published following legislative scrutiny of the Strikes (Minimu

Jenny Dickson considers what a human rights based approach in the Scottish and UK Covid-19 Inquiries may look like. Both the Scottish and the UK governments have established public inquiries to examine the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The inquiries are underway, both considering a wide range o

Today, 24 February 2023, marks exactly one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. In October 2022, at the opening ceremony of the IBA Annual Conference in Miami, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed delegates by video in which he referred to members of the audience as "defenders of the