Europe

Former Judge Baltasar Garzón of the Spanish National Court was suspended in 2010 and criminally prosecuted and tried in 2012 for alleged willful abuse of power in two cases of major political significance at the national level. In the first case, Mr. Garzón assumed jurisdiction to investigate enforced disappearances during the Civil War and the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco. Trough the second case, called Gürtel, he tried a political corruption scandal during which the former...

Two independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday expressed serious concern over a United Kingdom plan to end prosecutions for grave violations committed during the 30-year conflict in Northern Ireland, long known as “the Troubles”. The move was announced by Brandon Lewis, UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, in July, and would ban all conflict-related prosecutions through the introduction of a statute of limitations to apply equally to all...

Hande Toycan, who is Turkish-Cypriot, and Flora Hadjigeorgiou, a Greek-Cypriot, are among the many women who partner with the UN on the Mediterranean island to strengthen engagement, equality and stability. A shared bond Ms. Toycan was born and raised in the northern city of Famagusta, and still lives there. She is a member of the Famagusta Cultural Association and studied Greek language and literature in Ankara, the cultural capital of Turkey. Ms. Hadjigeorgiou, a retired teacher who...

The Security Council said in a statement released on Friday that settling any part of the abandoned Cypriot suburb of Varosha, “by people other than its inhabitants, is “inadmissible”. The presidential statement approved by all 15 Security Council members, upheld that “no actions should be carried out in relation to Varosha, that are not in accordance with its resolutions”. “The Security Council condemns the announcement in Cyprus by Turkish and Turkish Cypriot leaders on 20 July 2021...

Survivors of a massacre of mainly Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, and people associated with the perpetrators of what has become known as the Srebrenica genocide, have been telling their stories in a new exhibition by the United Nations, released 26 years after the events took place. Some 8,000 boys and men were killed by Bosnian Serb forces when they overran the town of Srebrenica during a regional war in the Balkans in July 1995, the largest atrocity on European soil since the Second...

Although a new European Union (EU) climate initiative unveiled on Wednesday could change global trade patterns to favour countries where production is relatively carbon efficient, its value in mitigating climate change will likely be limited, the UN trade and development agency, UNCTAD, has warned. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) comes into force in 2023 as part of new measures to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, including taxes on imports such as oil, coal and gas. In...

Belarus has witnessed an unprecedented human rights crisis over the past year, the independent expert appointed to monitor the country said on Monday, calling on authorities to immediately end their policy of repression and fully respect the legitimate aspirations of their people. Belarus has witnessed an unprecedented human rights crisis over the past year, the independent expert appointed to monitor the country said on Monday, calling on authorities to immediately end their policy of...

Along with Alpha and Beta, Delta is fuelling an aggressive third wave across Africa, with case numbers climbing faster than all earlier peaks, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO experts warned on Thursday that the numbers have increased for six consecutive weeks, up by 25% last week, reaching 202,000 positive cases. Deaths also rose by 15% across 38 African countries, to nearly 3,000. Young adults hit The Delta variant, initially identified in India, is now dominant in...

The European Union (EU) must use its leverage to ensure people everywhere have access to COVID-19 vaccines, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday. In a wide-ranging multilingual speech to the European Parliament in Brussels, the UN chief underscored the need to ramp up vaccinations globally. “The pandemic is causing more deaths today than a year ago. And vaccines are our only way out of this crisis. They must be considered as a global public good, available and...

Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that without “global cooperation based on agreed rules” we risk “the law of the jungle, where problems don’t get solved”. “Every day we see the cost of the absence of multilateral action: reduced access to vaccines, insufficient climate action, peace and security crises that fester”, he said.  Prevention, peace building According to the EU envoy, the world’s “biggest changes” stem from new...