Human Rights Watch

After being polio-free for more than 25 years, Palestine has confirmed a polio case in a 10-month-old baby in Gaza. Israeli officials should urgently end the blockade of Gaza and ensure full humanitarian access to prevent a polio outbreak. https://bit.ly/4fTCsrI

Imagine you just got out of prison after being locked up for peacefully protesting. You’re finally free – except, you’re not. "This is a Kafkaesque side to Kazakhstan: repression without rationality." Learn more in Andrew Stroehlein's Daily Brief:

📚#NewInTheLibrary WORKING PAPER: Human Rights in the New Eco-Social Contract: Exploring a Just Transition Through Public Services and Social Security By: Sylvain Aubry, Matt McConnell, Sarah Saadoun and Lena Simet, Ph.D.. 2024 This paper produced in collaboration with Human Rights Watch focuses on one of the three pillars identified by UNRISD to build new eco-social contracts: transformative social policies. It reviews the main human rights norms and obligations with respect to two of the policy areas under this pillar—universal quality public services and the right to social security—and explores how these can be applied in the context of removing fossil fuel subsidies as an illustrative case study for incorporating human rights into shifting social contracts. 🌟#Highlights: 🔵 Guidance for New Social Contracts:  Proper application of the human rights framework can guide the creation of new social contracts, avoiding unequal power dynamics and abuses. 🔵 Building Legitimacy and Consensus:  Human rights can help build legitimacy and consensus for new eco-social contracts—which can be particularly challenging when it requires a redistribution of resources. 🔵 Evaluating Social Contracts for Social Justice:  Human rights can help evaluate social contracts by providing a framework to identify eco-social contracts that truly promote social justice and distinguish them from those that do not meet these goals.  🔍 Explore more about this pivotal research by Human Rights Watch: https://bit.ly/3Xhoj0i This paper was prepared in response to a call for papers for the UNRISD Global Policy Seminar for a New Eco-Social Contract, Bonn, Germany, 29–30 August 2023. This collection of papers critically explores how broken social contracts can be reformed and transformed into eco-social contracts to overcome current challenges, protect people and planet, and set us firmly onto more sustainable pathways. Discover the other papers on: https://bit.ly/46I4iD2

📣 👀 Human Rights Watch's home page has a new look! Visit us now to learn more about who we are and the work we're doing to defend human rights ⤵️ https://www.hrw.org/

Afghan women can now be punished for singing or speaking in public. The Taliban's silencing of women’s voices in Afghanistan is abhorrent.

"Every minute we were beaten." A new HRW report documents Israel’s abuses against healthcare workers in Gaza since October. These cases all follow a pattern. More in Andrew Stroehlein's Daily Brief:

Executions in Iran, conscription in Burkina Faso, elections in Georgia and Tunisia — catch up on these stories in our weekly update ⤵️

Iranian authorities have reportedly executed at least 87 people in the month after presidential elections in late June, 2024. While authorities promote the elections as evidence of genuine change, they are carrying out an egregious execution spree.

On the evening of July 20, Israeli airstrikes hit Yemen’s vital Hodeidah port. The attack put millions of Yemenis, already enduring widespread hunger due to the decade-long conflict, and who rely on the port for food and humanitarian aid, at even greater risk. Governments supplying arms to Israel and those who may be supplying the Houthis should know they risk being complicit in war crimes.

Our fossil fuel use drives climate change, creating hotter, drier conditions in many places. Those conditions make wildfires more likely. More fires mean more smoke — and more smoke has health impacts. Learn more in Andrew Stroehlein's Daily Brief: