International Law Archive

Editor’s Note: Beginning with the next installment on Oct. 6, Rights & Wrongs will appear every other Monday.U.S. RELEASES ANNUAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM REPORT — In the latest edition of its annual report on religious freedom, released Sept. 19, the U.S. State Department named North Korea, Eritrea and Iran the worst abusers of religious rights. State Department Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom John Hanford spoke first of conditions in North Korea at the report’s launch, noting the country “remains among the world’s most egregious violators of religious freedom. The cult of personality surrounding the ruling family remains an important ideological underpinning […]

UNITED NATIONS — In his farewell speech to the United Nations this week, U.S. President George W. Bush assessed the utility of the world body in a way that represents a significant departure from his administration’s earlier policy. Bush, now entrenched in nation-building both in Iraq and in Afghanistan, told members of the U.N. General Assembly, “a clear lesson has emerged: The United Nations and other multilateral organizations are needed more urgently than ever.” His Sept. 23 speech came after almost eight years of rocky relations between the United Nations and the Bush administration. It also fueled speculation about the […]

HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS PRESS IOC ON FUTURE GAMES — Human rights groups are calling on the International Olympic Committee to promise that human rights guarantees will be part of the process for awarding future Olympic Games. Reporters Without Borders, Freedom House, Students for a Free Tibet, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are among the more than a dozen groups calling for more IOC attention to human rights as a criteria for selecting host nations. The success of the Beijing Games was tempered by Chinese authorities’ ongoing human rights abuses, and many worry that the games sent the wrong message […]