Human Rights at Home Blog

May – June 2024 Deadlines: Calls for Inputs by Human Rights Mechanisms

The following calls for inputs have been issued by UN Human Rights Mechanisms with deadlines in May – June 2024 and law professors whose practice, research, and/or scholarship touches on these topics may be interested in submission:

Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions – Call for inputs to inform the Special Rapporteur’s forthcoming report intended to address the risk of unlawful deaths of LGBTQI+ persons worldwide with a view to identifying main issues/challenges, emphasizing best practices, and offering evidence-based recommendations for improved protection of their right to life. Deadline May 10, 2024. Read more.

Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children – Call for inputs to inform the Special Rapporteur’s forthcoming report exploring the existing and emerging sexually exploitative practices and abuse against children in the digital environment, as well as the role artificial intelligence plays in facilitating the sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children and how states and other child protection stakeholders can respond to this problem. Deadline May 15, 2024. Read more.

Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in Law Enforcement – Call for inputs to inform the Special Rapporteur’s forthcoming report, specifically information on promising initiatives and positive or good practices; and on obstacles, challenges and lessons learned in ensuring access to justice, accountability, and redress for excessive use of force and other human rights violations by law enforcement officials against Africans and people of African descent. Deadline May 24, 2024. Read more.

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – Call for inputs for contributions to a Romani Memory Map for the Americas, a crowd-sourced initiative done jointly with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO); Laboratorio de Estudos sobre Etnicidade (LEER /Universidade de São Paulo), Brazil; Gonzaga University, USA; and the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, as well as with Roma human rights defenders and Roma civil society organizations throughout the Americas and beyond. Deadline June 15, 2024. Read more.  

This information was compiled from https://www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input-listing.

Supreme Court of India Recognizes Right Against Adverse Impacts of Climate Change

The Supreme Court of India, in a ruling published on Friday, April 5, 2024, officially recognized the right against the adverse impacts of climate change, saying it is intertwined with the right to life and equality that are embedded in the Indian constitution.  

The case at issue was regarding the conservation of two endangered bird species – the great India bustard and the lesser florican. The Supreme Court of India reversed a 2021 blanket ban against overhead powerlines over an area of 99,000 square kilometers covering parts of the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan that had been put in place to protect the birds. The court said that only allowing underground power transmission cables in such a large area, which also has an incredible potential for clean energy such as wind and solar, will severely impact the country's clean energy shift that is necessary to attain its climate goals. By doing so, it will impede global efforts against climate change, thereby threatening fundamental rights of Indians, such as the right to life, equality, access to energy, among others. 

Read portions of the decision here.  

Event 4/24: The Surge In Child Labor: Conventions, Laws, and Challenges

On April 24, 2024, from 1:00-2:00pm ET, please join the ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice for a webinar exploring child labor. The distinguished speakers will be Zama Neff, Benjamin Smith, and Jessica Leinward, and the event will be moderated by Elizabeth Barad. 

The recent rise of children at work is due to the increase in inflation and the cost of living, and in the United States, lessening of state protective laws and the use of migrant children. The International Labor Organization indicates there are 160 million children engaged in child labor, working in jobs that deprive them of their childhood and harm their mental and physical development. Some of the worst forms of work involve sexual exploitation. The BBC reported a mother forced to put her daughter into sex work to help support the family and survive living costs. In the United States, at least 14 states have rolled back child protection laws, and the NY Times reported that migrant children are employed in brutal work all across the U.S. Despite the International Labor Organization's prohibitive child labor laws, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the U.S. Department of Labor's laws, these practices persist. Our expert panelists will propose possible solutions.

This event is free and open to the public. Register for this event here.