Former President of Côte d'Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo has been cleared of crimes against humanity in Côte d’Ivoire by the International Criminal Court (ICC), it announced on Tuesday.

With demonstrations expected to take place in various Guatemalan cities on Monday and Tuesday, the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, is urging the Guatemalan Government to guarantee freedom of expression and opinion, and the right to peaceful assembly and association.

Some Member States have fallen short of offering a better future to children who continue to die prematurely or fall victim to poverty, trafficking and slavery, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Monday.

Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun’s desperate and ultimately successful bid for asylum in the face of alleged death-threats from her own family, provides a “glimpse into the precarious situation of millions of refugees worldwide” said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on Friday.

The human rights situation in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – DPRK - remains “extremely serious”, and along with international demands for denuclearization, this constitutes a “a critical test” for the year ahead, a senior UN-appointed expert said on Friday.

More than a week after voters went to the polls to choose a new President in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), results have yet to be announced and all primary telecommunications remain shut down – prompting a UN expert on Monday to urge the authorities to restore internet services as “a matter of urgency”.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Monday that 18-year-old Saudi national Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun, who had been stranded at Bangkok airport after fleeing her family in Kuwait, saying that she would be killed if forced to return, was “now in a secure place”.

A new UN report published on Monday shows that human trafficking is on the rise and taking on “horrific dimensions”, with sexual exploitation of victims the main driver. Children now account for 30 per cent of those being trafficked, and far more girls are detected than boys.

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, has called for the immediate release of a prominent human rights defender in Bahrain, after the country’s highest court rejected a final appeal for his release on Monday. Nabeel Rajab was jailed in 2016 for tweeting criticism of Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes on Yemen and allegations of torture inside one of Bahrain’s prisons.

Violence and alleged human rights violations in Bangladesh “before, during and after” 30 December elections have prompted the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to call on Friday for those responsible to be held to account.

The post-election environment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is “calm but tense” as the country waits for the results of the presidential poll, the UN Human Rights office (OHCHR) said on Friday.

The criminal trial in Saudi Arabia of individuals suspected of being involved in the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi does not meet the requirements of an independent and international probe requested by the UN’s top rights official, Michelle Bachelet, her office said on Friday.

To raise awareness of the importance of Braille for approximately 1.3 billion people living with some form of distance or near vision impairment, on Friday the United Nations is observing the first official World Braille Day.

An attack on a village in central Mali earlier this week in which at least 37 civilians died, is to be investigated with the help of United Nations human rights experts, the UN stabilization mission in the country (MINUSMA), announced on Thursday.

Women and activists have been reflecting on the progress made across the world in 2018 in reducing discrimination and inequalities based on gender and what hopes they have for 2019.

The world “has failed” to sufficiently protect children caught up in conflict and millions more are at risk of harm, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) revealed on Friday, adding that national leaders need to hold perpetrators of violence more accountable.

The excessive use of force during large-scale demonstrations against food and fuel shortages in Sudan is alarming, and an infringement on the right of peaceful assembly, said UN independent experts on Friday.

From drugs control, to indigenous people’s rights and counter-terrorism, the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee is officially known as the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee, with the full array of complex issues and challenges to mull over that its title would imply. Here’s the latest in our series of explainers on how the ideas and pledges of world leaders each September, are turned into action by Member States in the weeks after they go home.

A United Nations rights expert has called for a thorough investigation into the death of a Guatemalan migrant child, while she was in the custody of United States immigration authorities.

After the Nicaraguan Government announced that it has asked two key human rights institutions to leave the country, the UN human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said on Friday that she was “extremely alarmed” by a decision that means, in effect, there will be “no functioning independent human rights bodies left in Nicaragua”.