United Nations
A neck-and-neck election for the future of the internet
The campaign to elect the next Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union has entered the final stretch, with UN member states assembling in Bucharest, Romania…
Guterres whistles in the wind
Spare a thought for António Guterres. Public platforms don’t get much bigger than that enjoyed by the Secretary General of the United Nations, but no one seems to be taking much…
Beijing three-step: China denies, deflects and dissembles on Xinjiang
Propaganda, understood as the “deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behaviour to achieve a response that furthers the desired…
A tragedy in Xinjiang, a tragedy for the UN
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s four-year term ended this week with the release at the eleventh hour of a long-delayed report assessing China’s…
ASEAN governments need to act on Myanmar
On my first trip to Myanmar for Human Rights Watch in 2012, I met the activist and writer Kyaw Min Yu (known as Ko Jimmy), who had recently been released from prison. It was a…
Unpacking China’s Global Development Initiative
Overshadowed somewhat by the ongoing attention on China’s development efforts in the Pacific, last month China’s President Xi Jinping hosted a virtual High-Level Dialogue on…
Why India needs a refugee law
According to United Nations estimates, India hosts almost 213,000 refugees and asylum seekers, most hailing from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, China or Myanmar. India’s location in…
Multilateralism matters again
Freshly sworn in and already warmly welcomed by Quad leaders in Tokyo, Anthony Albanese got off to a swinging start on the foreign policy front. As the realities of government set…
Even Putin is not beyond the law
Russia’s ability to launch its so-called “special military operation” to undertake “denazification” in Ukraine has not so far faced international legal sanction. On 25 February, a…
The mysterious missing UN report on human rights abuses in Xinjiang
Delivering an annual report to the United Nations Human Rights Council last month, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet announced she would undertake an…