Following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, ending more than 20 years of conflict in South Sudan, the peace building processes in Sudan remain challenging. In addition, this is in contrast to the expectations and hopes i...

Sudanese government soldiers and militia have forced kidnapped men, women and children into labour and sexual slavery in the war-torn region of Darfur, a coalition of African charities has said. The Sudanese military said the allegations were not wor...

Practical application of and academic interest in human rights has grown exponentially over the last decade. Activism – its ethical imperatives, its particular constituencies, its social and political impact, and even its organisational structure - h...

Survivors of Rwanda's genocide and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have welcomed the life sentence given to its mastermind Theoneste Bagosora. Bagosora and two co-defendants were found by a UN tribunal to have led a committee that plotted the massac...

The case reveals the shortcoming of Section 24(1) of the Children Act, which relieved fathers from an immediate parental obligation to support their children born out of wedlock. The High Court held that such a law is discriminatory against children ...

This 10 December marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, it is more than a global birthday. The anniversary is a pertinent way to take stock of what the Declaration and the movement for human rights in genera...

For 16 years, WITNESS has harnessed the power of video to advance human rights. In honor of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10th, we've put together this short video with different WITNESS staff talking a...

The Angolan government should urgently end torture and unfair trials in state security cases, Human Rights Watch has said. Fourteen civilians who were arbitrarily detained and tortured in military custody are currently being held on security charges ...

A Paris appeals court has rejected an extradition request for a man accused of a role in Rwanda's 1994 genocide. A Rwandan court sentenced Isaac Kamali in his absence in 2003 to death for his alleged participation in the massacre. Mr Kamali, a mathem...

Marie trembles as she tells me about the day when Jean-Pierre Bemba's Congolese troops came to her town. "We heard gun-shots as they went from house to house," she says in Bossangoa in the Central African Republic. She struggles to contain her emotio...

Kenya must step up its efforts to track down a Rwandan genocide suspect, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says. The ICTR chief prosecutor is expected to tell the UN Security Council he is not satisfied with the level of cooperati...

Human rights as we know them today are based on the principles of equality, liberty and solidarity which emerged during the French Revolution and were embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While all human rights must be interpreted t...

There is a ‘secret-cult’ silence on the issue of abuse of the elderly in Nigeria, argues the author of this paper. The victims of abuse and others are reluctant to talk about it, and there is constant denial by victims and abusers. Acts of abuse ar...

The Togolese cabinet has presented a bill that will abolish capital penalty in a nation plagued with human rights violations. Human rights groups are delighted by the news.On 10 December, the symbolic day of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Decl...

Over the last five years, the global campaign to stop the use of child soldiers has garnered an impressive series of successes, including new international legal standards, action by the UN Security Council and regional bodies, and pledges from vario...

The Mauritanian government is guilty of routine and systematic torture, according to a new Amnesty International report. Mauritania: torture at the heart of the state says that the country's security forces have adopted torture as the preferred metho...

The International Coalition on the Detention of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants has launched the first international newsletter with a focus on global trends in migration-related detention and resources for groups working with detainees. To sig...

At a historic conference in Oslo, more than 100 countries are signing a convention that will ban cluster bombs that are known to cause great damage on civilians. More than 30 African countries are among them. Every country in East Africa, all Western...

"Slavery is the reality of modern day life. It has evolved in many parts of the world into many diverse and cruel forms", says, new UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery its causes and consequences, Ms. Gulnara Shahinian. "Last year,...

US district court jury acquitted San Ramon-based Chevron Corporation of complicity in human rights abuses. The case of Bowoto v. Chevron, which pitted Chevron and its relationship with the notoriously violent Nigerian police and military against Nige...