Law and Crime Prevention

In Burkina Faso, frontline officers carried out checks at suspected smuggling hotspots.
UNODC/INTERPOL

Joint UN-INTERPOL operation disrupts firearms supply to terrorist networks in West Africa and Sahel

21 December 2020
Africa

An international operation coordinated jointly by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the international police organization INTERPOL has disrupted trafficking networks that supply terrorist groups across West Africa and the Sahel, the UN agency reported on Monday. 

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. (file)
UN News/Daniel Johnson

UN human rights chief ‘appalled’ at Iran execution, questions trial process and verdict

14 December 2020
Asia Pacific

Iran’s decision to hang media activist Ruhollah Zam on Saturday was an appalling violation of human rights that followed a deeply flawed trial process, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said in a statement on Monday.  

Former Lebanese Prime Minister, the late Rafiq Hariri.
UN Photo/Greg Kinch

Lebanon: UN-backed tribunal sentences Hezbollah militant in Hariri assassination

11 December 2020
Middle East

The UN chief on Friday took note of five concurrent life sentences handed down to a Hezbollah militant, convicted in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut, fifteen years ago. 

Ten years after his first arrest, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains in prison.
Unsplash/Markus Spiske

Independent UN expert calls for Julian Assange’s release, cites prison’s COVID outbreak

8 December 2020
Europe

Amid a COVID-19 outbreak at London’s Belmarsh prison, an independent UN expert appealed to British authorities on Tuesday to release Julian Assange or to place him under guarded house arrest during extradition proceedings to the United States.  

Wreckage of suicide car bomb in Mogadishu. (file)
UN Photo/Stuart Price

New global hub to study factors driving radicalization and violent extremism

7 December 2020
Global

A new UN office in Doha will advance research into the factors that drive violent extremism and terrorism, the Organization’s counter-terrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov said on Monday during the soft launch held online. 

Only in exceptional circumstances and with incontrovertible evidence of intentional murder does international law permit the death penalty. (file)
© UNICEF/Josh Estey

UN experts call for clemency for Lisa Montgomery, as US reschedules planned execution 

3 December 2020
Americas

UN independent human rights experts expressed serious concern on Thursday, after the United States Government rescheduled the execution of Lisa Montgomery for 12 January, just days before new President Joe Biden, an opponent of the death penalty, is due to be sworn in. 

An industrial hemp field in Pitomača, Croatia.
Unsplash/David Gabrić

UN commission reclassifies cannabis, yet still considered harmful

2 December 2020
Global

In reviewing a series of World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations on cannabis and its derivatives, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) zeroed-in on the decision to remove cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs — where it was listed alongside specific deadly, addictive opioids, including heroin, recognized as having little to no therapeutic purposes.

A Yazidi Kurd from Sinjar who was abducted by the ISIL terrorist group, pictured in Mamilyan Camp for internally displaced persons in Akre, Iraq.
Giles Clarke/Getty Images Reportage

UN Committee urges end to impunity for enforced disappearances in Iraq

27 November 2020

A pattern of enforced disappearance – and impunity for such acts - persists in Iraq, according to a report published on Friday by the UN Committee charged with monitoring how well the country upholds its international obligations in dealing with the issue.

Landmines are cleared in Lebanon.
MAG Lebanon

Alert over growing use of cluster munitions, despite stockpile reductions

25 November 2020

Lethal cluster munitions are still being used in old and new conflicts around the world, from Syria to Libya, to Nagorno-Karabakh, a UN-backed civil society report said on Wednesday.

A 12-year-old former child soldier was reunited with an uncle with support from a UNICEF-supported Transit and Orientation Center in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
© UNICEF/Vincent Tremeau

DR Congo: War crimes conviction ‘an important victory’ for justice – UN envoy 

24 November 2020
Africa

Two senior UN officials welcomed on Tuesday the war crimes conviction and life sentencing of an armed combatant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).