United Nations

Campaigning to put human rights at the heart of the United Nations

Human rights diplomacy is everybody’s business. Make your voice count at the UN: join Amnesty International’s UN campaigns!

The UN is essential to ensuring accountability by member states for their human rights obligations and commitments. The UN is also a key platform for the development of international human rights laws and standards.

Amnesty International campaigns to put human rights violations on the UN agenda and makes recommendations for action by member states and UN institutions to protect human rights in all countries. Amnesty International also works to strengthen the effectiveness of the UN human rights machinery.

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News and Updates

The long journey towards an Arms Trade Treaty

27 March 2013

Sometimes a simple but potentially revolutionary idea can change the world for the better. But it often takes a crisis to galvanize people to take action, and that's how the idea for a global Arms Trade Treaty was born.

‘Keep up international pressure against abuses in Syria’

26 March 2013

As the League of Arab States met in Qatar and BRICS nations met in South Africa, Amnesty International called for global pressure on all parties in the Syrian conflict to abide by international human rights law.

UN: States must urgently shore up ‘serious deficiencies’ in draft arms treaty text

25 March 2013

Serious deficiencies in a new draft Arms Trade Treaty text would fail to prevent arms transfers to countries where they could be used to commit or facilitate summary and arbitrary killings, torture and enforced disappearances.

Arms proliferation and abuse shatter communities in Côte d'Ivoire

20 March 2013

A new Amnesty International report says that reckless and illegal arms supplies from Europe, Africa and China continue to fuel grave human rights abuses in the country.

UN: Don’t waste historic chance for a lifesaving Arms Trade Treaty

18 March 2013

World leaders must address the poorly regulated global arms trade that fuels grave human rights abuses of tens of millions of people and claims countless lives each year, Amnesty International said from the UN.

Appeals for action

Call for governments to sign up to defend economic, social and cultural rights

13 August 2009

Hunger, homelessness and preventable diseases are not inevitable social problems or simply the result of natural disasters – they are a violation of people’s economic, social and cultural rights.