THE RAPPORT — 8 December to 21 December 2025

THE RAPPORT is the only newsletter devoted to briefing human rights practitioners on the communications of the UN Special Procedures. It is written by our Principal, Kate McInnes, and is published on Sundays on a biweekly basis. To subscribe and read the full newsletter, visit https://therapport.substack.com/.

Americas

• Ongoing human rights violations suffered by the people of the Marshall Islands as a result of the United States of America’s former nuclear testing programme require a substantive response, including the declassification of relevant records and the provision of reparations, say the Special Rapporteurs on transitional justice, climate change, cultural rights, environment, and hazardous substances. (USA 35/2025, MHL 1/2025)

• Disciplinary proceedings against Peru’s Attorney General, Delia Espinoza, conducted in the absence of due process guarantees or compliance with the requirements of Peru’s own legal framework, may amount to a violation of international human rights standards protecting the independence of lawyers, including the 1990 UN Guidelines on the Role of Prosecutors, says the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. (PER 7/2025)

• The criminalisation of justice actors who investigated the Odebrecht corruption scandal in Guatemala constitutes “an arbitrary and disproportionate use of the state’s punitive apparatus, directed against justice operators for acts linked to the exercise of their professional duties, in a context that appears to be marked by political interests and reprisals,” says the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers. (GTM 8/2025)

• The forced eviction of a 102-year-old woman and her family in Cuba, without the provision of adequate alternative housing, could cause “serious and irreparable harm” and constitute violations of the rights to housing, privacy, family life, health, and freedom from arbitrary detention, say the Special Rapporteurs on health and housing. (CUB 2/2025)

• The alleged arbitrary arrest and physical assault of students assembling peacefully at Columbia University in the United States on 7 May 2025 constitutes “a practice of persecuting non-citizens who have been exercising their freedoms of expression, assembly, and association,” which disrupts the right to education of affected students, say the Special Rapporteurs on human rights defenders, education, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, and migrants. (USA 33/2025, OTH 125/2025)

• Negative impacts on the environment and human health linked to United States military construction projects in Palau risk the “erosion of both national and state-level governance, particularly through the alleged absence of participatory consultation processes and the lack of free, prior, and informed consent from affected Indigenous Peoples,” say the Special Rapporteurs on environment, climate change, cultural rights, development, and hazardous substances. (USA 31/2025, PLW 1/2025)

• The arrest and deprivation of liberty of Alejandro Henríquez and José Ángel Pérez, allegedly in retaliation for their legitimate defence of the rights to water, housing, and land of approximately 300 families in the El Triunfo community in El Salvador, necessitates a “priority judicial review of the legality of their detention, in accordance with applicable international standards, and consideration of their immediate release should there be no legitimate, clear, and duly substantiated charges supported by sufficient evidence,” say the Working Group on arbitrary detention and the Special Rapporteurs on water, food, freedom of assembly, and human rights defenders. (SLV 7/2025)

• Peru’s new Law on Equal Opportunities between Women and Men, which removes nearly all references to gender, runs contrary to international obligations to promote gender equality, combat all forms of discrimination, guarantee the rights to health and education, and preserve civic space by protecting the freedoms of expression, opinion, assembly, and association, say the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls and the Special Rapporteurs on SOGI, freedom of assembly, health, and human rights defenders. (PER 9/2025)

Africa

• The death sentence imposed in Sudan on Abubakr Mansour Mohamed Hamza, a lawyer and human rights defender, as well as the arbitrary arrest and detention of his defence counsel, Mr. Abubakr Elmahi, constitute clear violations of the right to life and the independence of the legal profession, say the Special Rapporteurs on human rights defenders, executions, and independence of judges and lawyers. (SDN 4/2025)

• The abduction of journalist and human rights defender Hugues Comlan Sossoukpè in Côte d’Ivoire, his enforced disappearance, and his return to Benin in retaliation for expressing critical views of the government during his exile appear to constitute a violation of the fundamental obligation of the principle of non-refoulement under international law, say the Working Groups on arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances and the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, human rights defenders, independence of judges and lawyers, and terrorism. (CIV 3/2025, BEN 1/2025)

• The gunfire attack on the Ocean Viking — a search and rescue vessel operated by the French organisation SOS Méditerranée — by the Libyan Coast Guard on 24 August 2025 engages the human rights obligations of both Libya and Italy, pursuant to their Memorandum of Understanding on reinforcing border security between the two countries, say the Special Rapporteurs on human rights defenders, migrants, and trafficking in persons. (LBY 2/2025, ITA 6/2025, OTH 131/2025)

• Deportations, arrests, and other human rights violations against Sudanese refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in Egypt raise concerns regarding multiple breaches of international human rights law, including obligations related to non-refoulement and the detention of children in immigration centres, say the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls and the Special Rapporteurs on trafficking in persons, migrants, and SOGI. (EGY 6/2025)

• Widespread extrajudicial killings and arbitrary arrests and detentions of protesters following the 29 October 2025 general elections “conveys a disturbing picture about the state of democracy and the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Tanzania,” say the Working Groups on arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances and the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of assembly, freedom of opinion, human rights defenders, and terrorism. (TZA 6/2025)

Asia

• The widespread and discriminatory removal of Aboriginal children from their families by child protection authorities in Western Australia — including on grounds such as unstable housing or eviction from domestic violence shelters — constitutes a “punitive and discriminatory use of child protection powers against structurally disadvantaged families,” in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, say the Special Rapporteurs on poverty and Indigenous Peoples. (AUS 6/2025)

• Pakistan’s use of force against India following the Pahalgam terrorist attack on 22 April 2025 in Jammu and Kashmir, and India’s corresponding military response within Pakistan’s territory, raise alarm that such disputes “may persist as long as the underlying dispute over the territorial status of Jammu and Kashmir is not peacefully settled in accordance with international law,” say the Special Rapporteurs on terrorism, executions, and democratic international order. (PAK 10/2025, IND 10/2025)

• The situation of an unidentified Syrian national in Laos, who is living in conditions of slavery and faces the risk of deportation, engages Laos’ obligations under international human rights law, as well as under regional instruments such as the ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, says the Special Rapporteur on slavery. (LAO 4/2025)

• The Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers has expressed concern regarding Azerbaijan’s Law on Advocates and Advocacy Activity, which, inter alia, risks lowering standards for entry into the legal profession and imposes obligations on lawyers in relation to the State. (AZE 3/2025)

Europe

• The designation of the Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers (BAHRL) as an “extremist formation,” and the designation of six lawyers as “individuals involved in extremist activities,” potentially in reprisal for engagement with the UN human rights system, amount to undue interference that “risks opening the door to systematic violations of the right to a fair trial and to equality before the law throughout the country,” say the Working Group on enforced disappearances and the Special Rapporteurs on Belarus, freedom of assembly, human rights defenders, independence of judges and lawyers, and terrorism. (BLR 9/2025)

• A Belarusian bill imposing administrative liability for the “propaganda of homosexuality, sex change, childlessness, and pedophilia” is premised on “discriminatory assumptions that such identities or family choices threaten public morality or the institution of the family,” and engages a wide range of international human rights obligations, say the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls and the Special Rapporteurs on Belarus, education, health, privacy, and SOGI. (BLR 13/2025)

• The Special Rapporteur on poverty has welcomed the introduction of a new ground of socioeconomic disadvantage in Ireland’s Equality Bill. (IRL 2/2025)

Middle East

• The imminent execution of 25-year-old Goli Kouhkan, who was married at the age of 12 to an abusive husband and may be implicated in his death, “exemplifies the discrimination and structural violence experienced by women facing the death penalty in the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly those who are victims of child marriage and domestic violence,” say the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls and the Special Rapporteurs on Iran, executions, slavery, and violence against women and girls. (IRN 20/2025)*******

• An amendment to Israel’s Penal Bill that would impose the death penalty on anyone who “intentionally or recklessly causes the death of an Israeli citizen when the act is committed out of a motive of racism or hostility towards the public, and with the aim of harming the State of Israel and the revival of the Jewish people in its homeland,” by a simple majority of a panel of three military judges in the West Bank, raises serious concerns regarding the right to life and due process, including the vagueness of its terms and the exclusion of commutation, say the Special Rapporteurs on Palestine, terrorism, executions, health, democratic international order, torture, transitional justice, and violence against women and girls. (ISR 23/2025)

Other

• The surveillance, arrest, detention, and/or forced departure of international students protesting the war in Gaza at Tufts University, Minnesota State University, Georgetown University, and Cornell University may violate the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which apply to academic institutions, say the Special Rapporteurs on human rights defenders, education, freedom of opinion, freedom of assembly, and migrants. (OTH 129/2025, OTH 128/2025, OTH 127/2025, OTH 126/2025)

• The misuse of the law against human rights defender Mr. Witoon Lianchamroon, following the dissemination of information concerning the alleged adverse human rights and environmental impacts of the Thailand-based agribusiness Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company Limited, engages the corporation’s human rights responsibilities, particularly in the context of the ongoing lack of adequate State measures in Thailand to protect human rights defenders, say the Working Group on business and human rights and the Special Rapporteurs on climate change, food, freedom of opinion, and human rights defenders. (OTH 133/2025)