Inside Geneva goes to New York: what really happens at the UN?

EPA / MAXIM SHIPENKOV

This week the Inside Geneva podcast is in New York, where the United Nations (UN) General Assembly is hearing multiple reports of serious human rights violations. But how seriously are they taken?

“I think it’s more difficult to get the human rights message [across] here in New York at the General Assembly. But hopefully we will be heard,” says Mariana Katzarova, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Russia.

Ukraine, the Middle East and Sudan are on the agenda. But so is the situation of human rights groups inside Russia.

“The situation with political prisoners in Russia today is no longer a crisis, it’s a catastrophe. We now have more political prisoners in Russia alone than there were in the whole of the Soviet Union, so that’s 15 countries put together,” says Vladimir Kara-Murza, a former political prisoner.

In Geneva, the Human Rights Council can order investigations into rights violations – but will New York respond?

“There is Gaza, the situation in Sudan, Myanmar, Syria – so many conflicts and humanitarian disasters, and there’s an inability of member states to reach an agreement,” says Louis Charbonneau, UN Director at Human Rights Watch NGO.

+ Read more: ‘Human rights are deeply political’

The UN Security Council, dominated by the US, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France, can’t agree – so it’s paralysed.

“I do have moments where I perhaps would like to stand up in the middle of the chamber and say: ‘Hey, do something!’ But that’s not professional and I would lose my press pass,” says journalist Dawn Clancy.

The UN’s main role is upholding peace and security. Is New York failing?

“For peace and security, human rights are the core. Without human rights we cannot have peace or security,” says Katzarova.

For the whole report from the UN General Assembly, join host Imogen Foulkes for Inside Geneva – in New York!

Find out more about the ‘Inside Geneva’ podcast and our other Swiss podcasts in English here.

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