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Meeting with civil society groups today at the United Nations climate change conference (COP21), Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he counts on grassroots organizations to help keep governments accountable, so they implement what they have committed to in words.

The rules governing global trade of food and agricultural products should aim to improve countries' food security and other development objectives, according to a new United Nations report issued today.

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Finland's membership to the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon commended the country on its leadership in advancing the Organization's work on peace and security, development and human rights, and expressed his gratitude for the country's solidarity with refugees in the region.

Every year, the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly hears from dozens of experts on human rights-related issues. The experts are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back, in an unpaid capacity, on specific human rights themes. The work of the experts, 54 of whom presented their latest findings over the past two months, covers all human rights – civil, cultural, economic, political, and social.

The United Nations today marked the first International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime to remember the victims of the “crime of crimes” and to call for action against the rise of hostility, xenophobia and intolerance across the world.

On a December evening in 2012, a 23-year-old physiotherapy student was beaten and brutally raped by five men and a youth on board an off-duty bus in the Indian capital, New Delhi. The injuries she sustained were so severe that she succumbed to them 13 days later, setting off protests in India and around the world for ending the scourge of violence against women.

To mark International Anti-Corruption Day, the United Nations is calling for people to join a worldwide campaign to raise awareness about what Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called a “corrosive” scourge, and encouraging people from all walks of life to take action against this crime.

The United Nations Security Council today adopted a historic resolution on youth, peace and security that urges greater representation by young men and women in the prevention and resolution of conflict amid “the rise of radicalization to violence and violent extremism amongst youth, which can be conducive to terrorism.”

Despite a significant reduction in hostilities in eastern Ukraine in the last few months in a conflict that has already left over 9,000 people dead and nearly 21,000 injured, serious human rights concerns persist, including killings, torture and impunity, the United Nations reported today.

The world is making “significant progress” toward malaria elimination with prevention and treatment efforts saving more than 660 million lives and $900 million in case management costs since 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported.