Yakin Erturk, the special rapporteur on violence against women for the UN Human Rights Council, was dispatched to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on a ten-day fact finding mission. Evidence of the sexual violence she encountered, which she described as "far beyond rape," was widespread--and absolutely sickening.

"Women are gang raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters," she said.

After rape, many women were shot or stabbed in the genital area, and survivors told Erturk that while held as slaves by the gangs they had been forced to eat excrement or the flesh of their murdered relatives.

Widespread sexual abuse in the various conflicts racking the republic -- which last year held elections hailed as marking a new era -- "seems to have become a generalized aspect of the overall oppression of women," Erturk said.

Not surprisingly, the local governments do little or nothing to punish the perpetrators, despite laws on the books. Read Professor Ertuk's full statement about sexual violence in DRC.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has hailed Rwanda's abolition of capital punishment.

"Abolition in Rwanda sends a very strong message," Ms Arbour said. "A country that has suffered the ultimate crime and whose people's thirst for justice is still far from quenched has decided to forego a sanction that should have no place in any society that claims to value human rights and the inviolability of the person. Rwanda is demonstrating leadership by action."

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From a legal stand-point, UN sponsored "ad-hoc" war crimes tribunals in Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and the former Yugoslavia have been valuable tools for testing and codifying the limits of laws that govern armed conflict. Through sheer necessity and much effort, these courts, for the past decade or so, have defined what constitutes a "war crime" punishable under international law.

Yesterday, a new category of war crime was given sound legal footing when the Special Court for Sierra Leone handed down the world's first conviction of military commanders accused of recruiting child soldiers. The court (which tries cases stemming from Sierra Leone's brutal 11-year civil war) convicted three men of recruiting and using child soldiers under the age of 16.

It's worth noting that the ruling comes near the 11-year anniversary of a similarly landmark moment: on June 28, 1996 prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia issued ground-breaking indictments in which rape was treated as a crime of war. Prosecutors won that case in early 2001, with a ruling establishing rape as a crime against humanity.

With yesterday's ruling on child soldiers, the progression of international humanitarian law steadily marches on.

A United Nations expert says that the human right situation in Somalia is getting worse: hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee their homes, others are being subject to threats, rape and violence.

Ghanim Alnajjar, the Independent Expert on the situation of Human Rights in Somalia, told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the current circumstances in the country are much worse than they were when he last briefed the 47-member body in September 2006.

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As Jessica notes below, fourteen new members have just been voted to the new Human Rights Council. The real story here is what country did not win a seat. Belarus, a repressive dictatorship in Eastern Europe, was blocked from gaining a seat on the council on Thursday when it could not muster the requisite number of votes in the General Assembly. Given Belarus' appalling human rights record that should not come as a surprise. Still, there was a chance that Belarus could have snuck in the council because Eastern Europe was guaranteed two slots on the 47 member panel, and only Belarus and Slovenia originally entered the race.

For a while, it looked as if Belarus was a shoo-in. The United States and other western countries, however, persuaded Bosnia to run and then worked behind the scenes to lobby members of the General Assembly to vote for Bosnia over Belarus. A coalition of NGO's like Human Rights Watch, the Open Society Institute, and the Democracy Coalition Project also lobbied hard to deny Belarus a seat on the Council.

According to the New York Times, the new United States Ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad called the outcome "heartening." This is significant statement because just over one year ago, the United States refused to vote to create the new Council (which replaced the discredited Human Rights Commission) and eschewed running for a seat. At the time, the United States worried that there were not enough safeguards preventing a country with dismal human rights record from gaining membership. However, the vote against Belarus goes to show that when member states are sufficiently determined to keep an abusive state off of the council, the rules on voting and membership are, in fact, adequate.

At the Brookings Institution this morning, Steven Kull, editor of WorldPublicOpinion.org released the results of a new global public opinion survey on the responsibility to protect. The results are pretty striking. According to the data, there is an emerging international norm that approves United Nations intervention in the affairs of a member state if that country is failing to protect its own population from widespread human rights abuses.

Back in 2005, heads of state signed on to the principal of the responsibility to protect. This survey shows that the idea has now been endorsed by the public--in very large numbers.

So what does this mean? For one, the data would suggest that the idea that sovereignty is the preeminent principal of international relations does not hold when it comes to genocide and large scale human rights abuses. This includes the publics of countries like China that have historically been among the staunchest defenders of the primacy of state sovereignty.

The survey also asked respondents from 10 countries about international intervention in Darfur. According to the report, "In all countries the most common response is that the Security Council has at least the right to authorize intervention in Darfur and many says it has the responsibility to act." In many member states, this translates into a willingness to send troops to Darfur. 84% of the French public supports contributing French troops to an international peacekeeping force for Darfur. Remarkably, despite the experience of Iraq, 65% of the American public would support contributing American troops to an international peacekeeping force in Darfur.

Old assumptions that publics will only support military action when it is in their national interest, narrowly defined, seem to no longer hold. As Gayle Smith said in the discussion following Kull's presentation, the idea of the responsibility to protect transcends national policies.

Partnering with governments and non-governmental organizations, the United Nations launched The Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking yesterday.

"Slavery is a booming international trade, less obvious than 200 years ago for sure, but all around us," UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told a ceremony in London today, which is also the bicentennial of the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire.

"Perhaps we simply prefer to close our eyes to it, as many law-abiding citizens buy the products and the services produced on the cheap by slaves," he added, noting that most victims of this modern-day slavery are women and young girls, many of whom are forced into prostitution or otherwise exploited sexually.

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The Human Rights Council opened its fourth session yesterday, kicking off with a video message from United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and an address by High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour.

In his statement, Ban said that "the pursuit of human rights lies at the heart of the mission of the United Nations...It underpins the hopes of millions of people for a life in freedom, security and prosperity."

More

Watch a live webcast of the session here.

The new Human Rights Council has just issued its first report on Darfur. The results are devastating: "The Mission...concludes that the Government of the Sudan has manifestly failed to protect the population of Darfur from large-scale international crimes, and has itself orchestrated and participated in these crimes. As such, the solemn obligation of the international community to exercise its responsibility to protect has become evident and urgent."

Jody Williams, who won a Nobel Prize for her campaign against land mines, headed the Human Rights Council mission to Sudan. But like many other international investigators, NGO workers and journalists, her team could not secure visas to conduct their work in Sudan. According to the report, the mission asked for visas twelve times in a twenty day period. Even Secretary General Ban Ki-moon personally appealed to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, but to no avail.

Denied entry to Sudan, the team conducted most of its work from refugee camps in eastern Chad. Still, the new Council showed its utility by collecting evidence of war crimes and making a number of recommendations to the international community. Interestingly, one such recommendation asks the General Assembly request that the Council compile a list of foreign companies that "have an adverse impact on human rights in Darfur."

For now, the report is a tool that member states can use to pressure Khartoum into reversing course in Darfur. Whether or not member states decide to follow though with the recommendations included in the report will ultimately determine how much impact it will have.

Apropos of today's International Women's Day theme, "Ending Impunity for Violence against Women and Girls," let me highlight the work of the Women's Initiative for Gender Justice, a Hague-based group that advocates using established international organizations, specifically the International Criminal Court, to protect the interests of female war crimes victims. Learn more about the group's important work here.

In March 2005, the Security Council granted the International Criminal Court jurisdiction to investigate suspected war crimes in Darfur. According to a just-released notice to the press, the results of the investigation will soon be revealed. The ICC announced today that early next week, Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno O'Campo will release evidence that connects named individuals to suspected cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

More.

Ghanim Alnajjar, an independent UN human rights expert, called for the release of three journalists arrested in Somalia and expressed concern over the closing of radio and television stations.

"Threats to journalists and media outlets constitute serious violations of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Alnajjar said. More

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has filed a legal brief with the Iraqi High Tribunal arguing that international law prohibits the death sentence on former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan on grounds of breach of due process.

A statement issued by Arbour's office said, "The High Commissioner argues that the Court's imposition of the death sentence on Taha Yassin Ramadan would violate Iraq's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights." More

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited the United Nations war crimes court in The Hague yesterday, calling for action by Security Council members to bring Bosnian Serb fugitives to trial.

"I know that there is a sense of frustration for not being able to complete what they are mandated to do because of non-cooperation, non-availability of those people indicted...I take this opportunity to urge again to those responsible perpetrators...to appear before the court for trial, for the interest and the benefit for themselves as well as for the benefit of international peace and security." More

Jody Williams, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner and anti-landmine campaigner, will lead a high-level UN team to investigate the human rights situation in Darfur.

The other mission members are United Nations Human Rights Council president and Mexican Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba; Mart Nutt, an Estonian Parliament Member and Member of the Council of Europe's European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance; Bertrand Ramcharan, the former Acting and Deputy UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Patrice Tonda, Gabon's Permanent Representative to the International Organizations in Geneva; and Indonesian Ambassador Marakim Wibisono, President of the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights. More

Also see the Associated Press.

According to a UN report released yesterday, over 34,000 civilians were killed in Iraq last year, with over 36,000 injured.

"In virtually every sphere, and building on earlier reports, the latest study amounts to a litany of abuses ranging from attacks on women, minorities and professional groups to forced displacements, to the activities of the police and security forces and the United States-led Multi-National Force (MNF-I)." More

Also see The New York Times, BBC News.

UN and EU leaders alike have criticized the executions of Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar.

Barzan was Iraqs former intelligence chief and Saddam Hussein's half-brother, and al-Bandar was the former head of the Revolutionary Court. Both men were hanged for crimes against humanity.

UN spokesperson Michele Montas said that SG Ban Ki-moon "regrets that despite pleas from himself and the high commissioner for human rights to spare the lives of the two co-defendants, they were both executed."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour released a statement saying, "The imposition of the death penalty after a trial and appeal proceedings that do not respect the principles of due process amounts to a violation of the right to life."

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the executions were "detrimental also to the question of national reconciliation" in Iraq and other European leaders restated their objections to the death penalty. More

UN and EU leaders alike have criticized the executions of Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar.

Barzan was Iraqs former intelligence chief and Saddam Hussein's half-brother, and al-Bandar was the former head of the Revolutionary Court. Both men were hanged for crimes against humanity.

UN spokesperson Michele Montas said that SG Ban Ki-moon "regrets that despite pleas from himself and the high commissioner for human rights to spare the lives of the two co-defendants, they were both executed."

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour released a statement saying, "The imposition of the death penalty after a trial and appeal proceedings that do not respect the principles of due process amounts to a violation of the right to life."

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said that the executions were "detrimental also to the question of national reconciliation" in Iraq and other European leaders restated their objections to the death penalty. More

Yesterday, the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) told the Security Council that by February, his office will hand over evidence of war crimes in Darfur to a set of ICC pre-trial judges. This will set in motion a series of events that will likely lead to indictments of Sudanese government officials for crimes against humanity in Darfur.

Following a January 2005 groundbreaking report on the systematized nature of the government sponsored attacks on civilian enclaves in Darfur, the Security Council considered granting the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute war crimes in Darfur. Initially, the United States responded coolly to this idea. At the time, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues Pierre-Richard Prosper argued against this approach, saying that the United States "does not want to be party to legitimizing the ICC." But when the proposal eventually came to a vote, the United States abstained and the measure passed. Now, some eighteen months later, the results of this investigation may soon become apparent as the first indictments are handed down.

Of course, paper indictments alone will not stop the killing in Darfur. But a Security Council that is united in support of the Court's work can help convey to the Sudanese government that the international community is dedicated to ensuring accountability in Darfur. Further, the indictments could give the international community additional leverage over the Sudanese government, which has thus far resisted international calls for a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.

Though it's still a young institution, the ICC's Darfur investigation may help the Court prove itself to skeptics. For one, it has apparantly been able to gather evidence in as tough a place as Darfur. Of equal importance the impending Darfur indictments may prove, once and for all, that the Court can serve a useful political function when confronting the world's most difficult humanitarian crises.

"On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become a universal standard for defending and promoting human rights. Every year on 10 December, Human Rights Day marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration. On Human Rights Day it is celebrated around the globe that "All human beings are born with equal and inalienable rights and fundamental freedoms". This year Human Rights Day focuses on fighting poverty as a matter of obligation, not of charity." More

"Marking the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for stepped-up measures to end the practice and to address the entrenched poverty which leaves people vulnerable to enslavement. "Contemporary forms of slavery - from bonded labour to human trafficking - are flourishing as a result of discrimination, social exclusion, and vulnerability exacerbated by poverty," the Secretary-General said in a message on the observance." More

"Mr. Annan said it is crucial that the Council preserves and strengthens what he called its "crown jewel" - the system of Special Procedures, or rapporteurs, independent experts and working groups tasked with examining a specific area of human rights.

"It has long since been recognized in theory, and increasingly also in practice, that the rule of law cannot be left to the discretion of governments, no matter how democratically elected they may be." The Secretary-General said the area most in need of innovation is the organization of the universal periodic review, a peer review mechanism. More

BBC: "UN investigators in the Democratic Republic of Congo say they have found mass graves with about 30 bodies in an army camp in the east of the country.

The dead included women and children who appeared to have been murdered, a UN spokesman said. He believed they had disappeared in the last few months."

"The head of the United Nations body mandated to protect press freedom today deplored the murder of yet one more Iraqi journalist, saying it was vital to bring an end to "the outrageous campaign of bloodshed" against media professionals in the violence-racked country." More

On Sunday, the world's top humanitarian official met one of the world's worst war criminals in a remote jungle outpost on the Congo-Sudan border. Jan Egeland, the UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator met Joseph Kony, leader of the brutal Lord's Resistance Army, in the depths of the jungle in an effort to promote peace in the devastated region.

The two men are a study in contradiction. Egeland, who is resigning in January, has devoted his long diplomatic career to preserving life. Meanwhile, Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has spent just as long waging a merciless rebellion in Northern Uganda. The main victims of the LRA are the abducted children who make up the rank and file of the army and serve as sex slaves to their commanders. Those children in northern Ugandan villages who have been lucky enough to avoid the LRA do so by "night commuting" from their villages to relatively safer confines of larger towns and IDP camps. Tens of thousands of children avoid abduction this way.

In October, the International Criminal Court issued its first ever indictment against Kony. And since then, there has been a slow, but positive march toward peace. In August, the LRA and the Government of Uganda signed a ceasefire, which is more or less holding. The ceasefire is being supported by the UN, mainly through the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS). According to the Security Council Report, as a result of the cessation of hostilities and the improvement in the humanitarian situation, 300,000 internally displaced persons are reported to have begun returning to northern Uganda.

Still, the cease-fire remains tenuous. Egeland's meeting was an attempt to secure the release of some abducted children as a sign of good faith and relay messages between the fugitive Kony and the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni. And it should be noted that this trip came at great personal risk to the Egeland. Egeland flew to a remote outpost in South Sudan and with a small security team, then drove deep into the jungle to wait for Kony. When Kony arrived, he came with an entourage carrying rifles affixed with bayonets. And according to this Times (UK) report Kony behaved erratically as if he was on drugs.

The Council is expected to consider a Presidential statement on the situation in Uganda in the next few days. The timing is good, for the conflict is closer to resolution than it has ever been. What is needed now is strong international commitment to facilitate a lasting peace.

CNN: "Human trafficking, including women forced to become prostitutes or minors forced to do child labor, is worse now than the trade in African slaves of past centuries, a top Vatican official said on Tuesday.

"This trafficking in human beings has intensified, persons put into slavery because they depend on certain criminals who take possession of these human beings," said Cardinal Renato Martino, former longtime Vatican envoy to the United Nations and current head of the Holy See's office concerned with migrant and itinerant peoples."

More here

Washington Post: "Washington's new law allowing tough interrogation techniques and military trials for terrorism suspects risks setting a dangerous standard for other countries to follow, a United Nations rights expert said on Friday.

Martin Scheinin, the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, said he was concerned about the impact the U.S. Military Commissions Act would have abroad.

"Some governments may view certain aspects of this legislation as an example that could be followed in their national counter-terrorism legislation," the Finnish jurist said in a statement released in Geneva."

UN News: States are still showing a "lack of awareness" over the seriousness of torture, despite the fact they are obligated to criminalize the practice, an independent United Nations expert said today, warning that few cases are ever brought to justice and where they are, the perpetrators generally get away with minor sentences.

"What is always strange to me if I go on a country mission and then speak to high Governmental officials, speak to the heads of prisons, of police stations etc, [is] a lack of awareness that torture is one of the most serious human rights violations," the UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, told reporters in New York.

Reuters: "Some 2.6 billion people in the world, mainly in Africa and Asia, lack access to basic sanitation, increasing the risk of diarrhea and other diseases fatal to children, said a U.N. report released on Thursday.

UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund, in a study on water and sanitation in developing nations, concluded that U.N. goals could be met on clean water, especially in urban areas, but the same was not true for access to the crudest of toilets."

In May, the Security Council authorized the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur. Three months later, blue helmets are nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, the UN's top humanitarian official recently warned that a peace accord signed in Abuja, Nigeria between some of the rebel factions and Khartoum is "doomed to failure" and that the situation was going from "really bad to catastrophic."

So who or what is to blame for this appalling inaction in Darfur?

Martin Peretz of The New Republic views the continuing violence in Darfur as a failure of the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions. In a sense, he is correct: The Security Council resolution passed in conjunction with May's peace accords called for the paltry African Union monitoring force in Darfur to be replaced with a robust United Nations peacekeeping force.

But Kofi Annan cannot wave a magic wand and summon a peacekeeping force for Darfur. He has to rely on member states to pony up. So far, key member states have been reluctant to commit troops without first securing Khartoum's blessing. And to say the least, Khartoum has not responded enthusiastically to this idea; at various moments, Khartoum has called such a force "neocolonialist" and has unsubtly threatened it with violence.

The situation seems hopelessly stuck. Or at least it was until late last week when the United States and the United Kingdom seemed poised to endorse an ambitious plan of action for Darfur spelled out by Kofi Annan.

With the Security Council otherwise consumed by back-to-back crises in North Korea and Lebanon, Darfur received scant attention this summer. In the midst of the chaos in Turtle Bay in late July, Kofi Annan issued a little noticed but hugely important thirty page report on Darfur. This report (pdf), which was delivered to the Security Council on July 29th, could be the last chance to save Darfur.

Annan outlines a broad mandate for a United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to take over from the African Union, which currently fields only 7,000 troops that operate under a limited mandate. By contrast, UNMIS would include some 17,300 peacekeepers, and many thousands of civilians experts to secure, rehabilitate, rebuild and enforce a ceasefire in Darfur. However, Annan acknowledges the hurdles to assembling a peacekeeping force for Darfur. So, as something of a stop-gap measure, Annan proposes that the UN appropriate resources including communications, logistics, and command and control assets, as well as military equipment such as aircraft and armored personnel carriers, to the African Union.

This is a novel idea. And if the Security Council approves it would create what the informative Security Council Report calls "a hybrid force, never before tried by the UN, with UN assets and personnel placed under the command of another institution [the AU]." As envisioned by Annan, the hybridization would commence immediately and continue until the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) is able to deploy a robust peacekeeping force in Darfur.

At least for the moment, Annan's proposal seems to have inspired some members of the Security Council to refocus on Darfur. In the Council's first meeting on Darfur in over six weeks, representatives from the United States and United Kingdom explicitly endorsed Annan's plan in a draft resolution they circulated. Further, the US-UK draft resolution would place eventual peacekeepers under Chapter VII, which seems to heed Annan's call that UNMIS be mandated to protect civilians and keep open lines of humanitarian access, even if this means dealing "proactively with spoilers, including in a pre-emptive manner."

Per Annan's recommendation the US-UK draft proposes 17,300 UNMIS troops for Darfur, with two additional battalions on the ready. And to be sure, the same obstacles that have prevented the deployment of blue helmets to Darfur since May exist to this day; the countries with the most influence over Khartoum continue to refuse to make Sudan's acquiescing to a peacekeeping force a priority in their bilateral relations. This is despite Annan's plea:

"No effort should be spared to send [Khartoum] the simple, powerful message: international involvement will increase the chances of peace taking root in Darfur, will strengthen the credibility of the peace process and the protection of the suffering populations of Darfur. Transition to a United Nations operation should happen as soon as possible, and the international community's message should make clear that the costs of rejecting the transition could be serious and lasting."

Unfortunately for the people of Darfur, Annan alone cannot pressure Khartoum into accepting peacekeepers. For that, he needs the support of his most influential member states which alone have the ability to lean on Khartoum.

Darfur is on the verge of total collapse. Unless this new movement for Darfur turns into real momentum for progress in the region, death and misery will remain the norm in Darfur for the foreseeable future.

"With a quarter of Lebanon's population forced to flee their homes and violence claiming lives daily in the conflict between Hizbollah and Israel, the United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on Friday to discuss the worsening situation in the war-ravaged country." [More]

"The United States must better protect poor people and African-Americans in natural disasters to avoid problems like those after Hurricane Katrina, a U.N. human rights panel said Friday.

The U.N. Human Rights Committee said poor and black Americans were "disadvantaged" after Katrina, and the U.S. should work harder to ensure that their rights "are fully taken into consideration in the reconstruction plans with regard to access to housing, education and health care." [More]

Reuters: "The U.N. Human Rights Committee on Friday told Washington it should immediately shut all "secret detention" facilities and give the International Committee of the Red Cross access to anybody held in armed conflict.

In findings on U.S. observance of the U.N.'s main political rights' convention, the committee said it had "credible and uncontested" information that the United States had detained people "secretly and in secret places for months and years."

"The state party should immediately abolish all secret detention and secret detention facilities," it said, echoing a similar demand in May by the United Nations' Committee on Torture.

The committee said it could not accept Washington's argument that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which the United States has signed, does not apply to anyone held outside U.S. territory."

BBC: "The 50 least developed countries, most of which are in Africa, lack the means to compete in a rapidly globalising world, says the UN's Unctad agency. Unctad's latest report says aid should be used to make poorer economies more productive and boost wealth creation.

"We need to go back to the basics," said co-author Zeljka Kozul-Wright. "If countries do not invest in infrastructure, they are not going to sow the seeds for growth and development in future," she told the BBC News website."

"The UN's top human rights official issued a strong warning yesterday that killings of innocent civilians in Lebanon and Israel could amount to war crimes.

"International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligation to protect civilians during hostilities," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour. "This obligation is also expressed in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity." [More]

Washington Post: "The United States defended its record on prisoner treatment, racial profiling, immigration and the death penalty on Monday in its first appearance before a top United Nations human rights panel in 11 years."

Reuters: "Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis.

In an interview a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a review of foreign troops' immunity, Human Rights Minister Wigdan Michael said work on it was now under way and a request could be ready by next month to go to the U.N. Security Council, under whose mandate U.S.-led forces operate in Iraq.

"We're very serious about this," she said, adding a lack of enforcement of U.S. military law in the past had encouraged soldiers to commit crimes against Iraqi civilians."

UN News Service: "Concerned at the situation facing civilians in strife-torn Gaza, Secretary-General Kofi Annan today issued a strong appeal for urgent action to alleviate their plight, calling on Israel to lift restrictions hampering the work of UN agencies there.

"As I have repeatedly stated, I am extremely concerned about the dangerous situation in the occupied Palestinian Territory," Mr. Annan said in a statement released in Berlin, Germany.

"I am appealing for urgent action to alleviate the desperate humanitarian situation of the civilian population."

Given the scale of killings, rape, looting and destruction of villages in Darfur, Sudan the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations-backed criminal court said today he anticipates the prosecution of a sequence of cases, rather than a single case, of possible war crimes in the conflict between the Khartoum Government, allied militia and rebels.

"Identifying those persons with the greatest responsibility for the most serious crimes in Darfur is a key challenge for the investigation," Luis Moreno Ocampo, of the International Criminal Court (ICC), said as he presented his latest report (pdf) to the Security Council this afternoon. "The complexity of the conflict in Darfur exacerbates this challenge, given that it involves multiple parties, varying over time throughout the different states and localities." [More]

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan vowed to continue working for the release of Myanmar democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whose house arrest the authorities have extended.

"Despite this setback, the international community cannot abandon the search for improvements in the difficult situation in Myanmar," Mr. Annan said in a statement issued by his spokesman, just four days after he appealed directly to the head of State, Senior General Than Shwe, to release Ms. Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for 10 of the past 16 years. [Link]

"Human rights in Iraq are being "severely undermined" by growing insecurity, violence and a "breakdown of law and order" caused by militias and criminal gangs, the U.N. mission here said Tuesday.

The human rights update, issued every two months by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, cited soaring numbers of execution-style killings in Baghdad. Such slayings have increased during a surge of sectarian violence that followed the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra on Feb. 22.

Baghdad's main morgue -- which handles only the remains of victims of violent or suspicious deaths, not including bombing victims -- issued 1,155 death certificates in April, the U.N. agency reported." [Read more]

AP: "The United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror, the U.N. panel that monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty said Friday.

The Committee Against Torture also said detainees should not be returned to any country where they could face a "real risk" of being tortured.

The criticism, contained in an 11-page report, followed a hearing in Geneva this month on U.S. adherence to the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture. The criticism carries no penalties beyond international scrutiny, but human rights observers say it could influence U.S. public opinion and hence the government."

"U.N. human rights investigators called on Myanmar's junta on Tuesday to stop targeting members of the country's ethnic Karen minority and cited allegations of killings, rape and torture by soldiers." [Read more]

"Ethiopia is holding opposition figures under laws that may violate its constitution, Somalia urgently needs international attention, and despite assertions by Sudan's Government, displaced women in that country's Darfur region are still being raped on a large scale, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said today.

Just back from a two-week mission to the Horn of Africa, she told reporters at the UN complex in Geneva that in Ethiopia, thousands of people were imprisoned after events following last year's elections year. Of these just over 100 remained, comprising elected officials, journalists and other members of civil society charged with genocide and treason." [Full story]

WaPo: "Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia won seats on the new U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday despite their poor human rights records, but two rights abusers - Iran and Venezuela - were defeated.

Human rights groups said they were generally pleased with the 47 members elected to the council, which will replace the highly politicized Human Rights Commission. It was discredited in recent years because some countries with terrible rights records used their membership to protect one another from condemnation.

"The spoiler governments, the governments that have a history of trying to undermine the protection of human rights through their membership on the old commission are now a significantly reduced minority when it comes to the council," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "That doesn't guarantee that the council will be a success, but it is a step in the right direction."

"The number of refugees worldwide is at a 25-year low, but a growing number of displaced people are suffering under tighter asylum restrictions and increased fears of terrorism, the UN Refugee Agency said Wednesday.

Fewer armed conflicts and large-scale repatriations to countries such as Afghanistan and Sierra Leone reduced the number of refugees to 9.2 million in 2004, compared with 18 million in 1992, according to the United Nations report "State of the World's Refugees: Human Displacement in the New Millennium."

But growing numbers of displaced people who fall outside the protections of the UN Refugee Convention -- an estimated 175 million -- are facing precarious futures amid increased security threats, growing intolerance and declines in donations, said Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees." [Full story]

"The head of the U.N. mission's human rights unit in Haiti accused judicial officials and the U.S.-backed interim government on Thursday of illegally detaining most of the 4,000 people behind bars in the country.

Thierry Fagart said most of the inmates had not been formally charged or put on trial by the interim authorities who replaced ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide two years ago.

"Most of the people in jail in Haiti are being detained illegally. The legal procedures have been systematically violated," said Fagart.

Fagart said many of the detainees, particularly high-profile prisoners, should be released immediately while investigations and other judicial proceedings continue.

He said the decision by authorities in the impoverished Caribbean country to hold people "preventively" behind bars, for months or years, often without charges filed against them, was unacceptable." [Read more]

"Warning that the proposed Human Rights Council could "unravel" if Member States made the wrong moves in the ongoing negotiations over the body, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said today that the Council was of utmost importance to all nations and the stakes in the ongoing debate were "very high."

Mr. Annan told reporters that he was "chagrined" by reports that Washington opposed the proposed text to set up the Council, aimed at replacing the much-criticized Human Rights Commission, but said that this was not an issue about isolating the United States from the rest of the world and he repeated his call for an agreement as soon as possible."

"If we are not careful and we make the wrong moves that unravel the Council, then we are in a situation where we have a Commission that we all claim is discredited, and the Council that should replace it is being unravelled," he said.

"So I would urge the Member States to think about this as they move forward with their decision. The bad must always give in to the good, but the better must not be the enemy of the good. That is the advice I would want them to bear in mind as they attempt to settle this issue." [Read more]

Also see:

EU Backs Proposals for New UN Rights Council

States should transcend national concerns
to agree on Human Rights Council: Eliasson

Human rights: A needed UN reform

Jan Eliasson

"Seeking to dramatically bolster the protection of human rights around the world, the President of the United Nations General Assembly today unveiled (pdf) the draft blueprint for a new Human Rights Council with higher status and greater accountability than the much-criticized Human Rights Commission that meets yearly in Geneva.

"While we will build on the positive achievements and best practices of the Commission, some of the elements we are considering will make the Human Rights Council a truly new and different body - a fresh start," Jan Eliasson of Sweden said in introducing the draft resolution for the body, which was called for by world leaders at the September 2005 summit in New York." [Read more]

Also see:

New UN rights Council Put Forward

"A United Nations inquiry has called for the immediate closure of America's Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians "up to the highest level" who are accused of torturing detainees.

The UN Human Rights Commission report, due to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.

It calls for the United States to halt all "practices amounting to torture", including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.

The report wants the Bush administration to ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that "all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice". [Read more]

UPDATE (2.16.06): "The report was based on interviews with former detainees, lawyers, public documents, media reports and a questionnaire filled out by the U.S. government. It found that interrogation techniques authorized by the Department of Defense, "particularly if used simultaneously, amount to degrading treatment in violation of ... the Convention against Torture." CNN

"The United Nations' refugee agency has received assurances from Egypt that Sudanese refugees would not be deported to Sudan despite media reports to the contrary, a spokesperson for the agency said on Tuesday.

Egypt's state owned Al-Ahram newspaper said in Tuesday's edition that an unspecified number of refugees were being held in a military camp near Cairo airport in preparation for deportation within two days." [More}

NYT: "Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday vigorously defended Louise Arbour, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, after comments she made about detention and torture came under criticism from John R. Bolton, the United States ambassador.

"The secretary general has absolutely no disagreement with the statement she made yesterday, and he sees no reason to object to any of it," said Mr. Annan's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. In an unusual instance of a secretary general's singling out an individual envoy for critical comment, Mr. Annan said he was seeking a meeting with Mr. Bolton to make his point in person."