This submission discusses how children without parental care are most vulnerable to becoming child soldiers, not only in times of armed conflict, but also in peacetime. It particularly mentions children under 18 years of age in State institutions, who may be recruited into Government armed forces. The submission includes recommendations for the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

References to Conscientious Objection in the documents submitted to, and resolutions of, the 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, March to April 2005.

References to Women in Prison and Children of Imprisoned Mothers in the documents submitted to, and resolutions of, the 61st session of the UN Commission on Human Rights, March-April 2005.

In the course of QUNOs work on the situation of women in prison, it became clear that imprisonment of women had an enormous impact upon children. This publication concerns babies and young children who stay in prison with their mothers. There are no obvious right or wrong answers to several of the dilemmas raised: neither separating babies and young children from their mother nor imprisoning them with their mother is desirable. This research tries to outline what the rights of the child in such a situation are, and how they can best be protected.  Some examples of strategies and good practices have been included. Also included are guidelines and suggestions for drafting legislation, regulations, policies and programmes regarding babies and small children residing in prisons.

This paper critically analyses the increasing level of international intellectual property standards, the lack of economic analysis of such higher standards, the undemocratic and ideological international standard-setting processes, and the lack of coordination within and among developing countries on intellectual property matters. It argues that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) should not be the only UN agency to deal with intellectual property.

To meet the challenges the paper analyses, it suggests implementing a development agenda for WIPO and taking deliberate steps to position other UN agencies to provide substantive contributions to global policies on innovation, development and intellectual property.

Part One of the paper explains how the priority of achieving minimum standards of protection and enforcement of existing IPRs has been superseded by that of global IP harmonisation for patents and what may be referred to as dynamic responsiveness for copyright. It also identifies the strategies being adopted to accelerate and deepen these processes. Part Two aims to demonstrate that this is very important and raises very high economic stakes.

An oral statement by Friends World Committee for Consultation (Quakers), to the 60th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights. It highlights the importance of understanding the reasons for which young people volunteer for armed forces and armed groups, citing the importance of such understanding for demobilisation and long-term re-integration efforts.

See also:

• a written statement submitted to the 60th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights,
• This paper presented at a conference of the Spanish Red Cross, and
• The report Young Soldiers: Why they choose to fight.

Focuses on the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Chile and the United States of America (U.S.). The paper deals with broad aspects of trade, including general provisions establishing a free trade zone between the two countries, settlement of disputes, market access, services, investment, telecommunications and intellectual property (IP).

Its purpose is to contribute to a better understanding of TRIPs-plus issues, the specific contents of the FTA and the lessons that could be drawn from the negotiations between the most powerful and technologically advanced country in the world – with clear stakes in IPRs – and a small and dynamic developing country that has one of the most open and liberal economies of the Americas.

This beginners' introduction to rules on patents, copyright and other forms of intellectual property describes how they affect distribution of wealth and power.  It describes what patents are, and how intellectual property rules underpin the control of, access to and use of technology, knowledge, medicines, seeds, biodiversity, scientific research and much more.

It suggests ways concerned individuals can get involved and points to other key actors working on these topics.

Although published in 2004, its key points are valid today.