By Human Rights Watch
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (bottom - C) and Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen (bottom L) attend the vote to start the withdrawal process from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Budapest, Hungary, May 20, 2025. © 2025 Marton Monus/Reuters (Brussels) – Hungary’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) is an insult to victims and survivors of the world’s worst crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.Hungarian authorities formally notified the United Nations secretary-general on June 2, 2025, that Hungary is withdrawing from the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty,…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Climate activists protest to end use of fossil fuels at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, June 8, 2023. © 2023 Martin Meissner/AP Photo As negotiators gather in Bonn for the mid-year United Nations climate talks, a key stepping-stone toward the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, governments have an important opportunity to place the fossil fuel phaseout at the heart of global climate action.Despite the historic commitment at COP28 to transition away from fossil fuels, COP29 delivered no meaningful progress. Meanwhile, several…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image An empty classroom in a secondary school in southern Senegal. © 2019 Elin Martinez/Human Rights Watch (Abuja) – Most African governments have consistently failed to meet global and regional education funding targets to ensure quality public education, Human Rights Watch said today on the African Union’s Day of the African Child.The 2025 theme for the day is “planning and budgeting for children’s rights: progress since 2010.” However, based on national data reported to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), only…
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By Olivier Walther, Associate Professor in Geography, University of Florida
Alexander John Thurston, Associate Professor, Political Science, University of Cincinnati
Steven Radil, Assistant Professor of Geosciences, United States Air Force Academy
What’s the connection between roads and conflict in west Africa? This may seem like an odd question. But a study we conducted shows a close relationship between the two.
We are researchers of transnational political violence. We analysed 58,000 violent events in west Africa between 2000 to 2024. Our focus was on identifying…
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By Leonor Oliveira Toscano, PhD Candidate in Political Science, University of Oslo
Jana Krause, Professor of Political Science, University of Oslo
Marika Miner, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Oslo
Kenya has been praised as a “model for the world” when it comes to peacebuilding efforts to manage outbreaks of violence within its borders. The country has systematically put in place a peacebuilding architecture rooted in a history of local peace initiatives. These date back to the early 1990s.
Over this period, the Wajir Peace and Development…
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By Benjamin Muller, Professor & Program Coordinator in Migration and Border Studies, King’s University College, Western University
Canada’s ‘Strong Border Act’ is a recent chapter in the history of co-operation and coercion by the United States, but for Canadians, it could be even more troubling than Donald Trump’s travel bans.
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By Greg Beckett, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Western University
With no elected government, spiraling violence, and little international success, Haiti faces a multidimensional collapse few see a clear path out of.
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By Jeremy Hicks, Professor of Post-Soviet Cultural History and Film, Queen Mary University of London
A statue of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was unveiled in the Taganskaya metro station in Moscow in May, recreating a mural that was dismantled decades ago. It is the first such statue to be erected in central Moscow since Stalin’s death in 1953 and marks a disturbing new stage in Russia’s authoritarian path.
Tens of millions of people died as a direct result of Stalin’s policies between 1924 and his death. These policies included the forced
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By David Voas, Emeritus Professor of Social Science, UCL
The Bible Society recently published a report claiming that church attendance in England and Wales increased by more than half between 2018 and 2024. The revival was especially striking among young men, with reported church attendance jumping from 4% to 21% over this short period.
As a quantitative social scientist who has studied religious change in modern societies for more than 25 years, I’m surprised – and sceptical. I do not doubt…
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By Colin Alexander, Senior Lecturer in Political Communications, Nottingham Trent University
It’s ironic that many characters are offended by an animal capable of instinct alone, when they as humans – capable of reason and choice – behave so badly.
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