Focusing on the theme, “Seizing the Moment for Peace in a Disrupted World,” the annual Alliance for Peacebuilding gathering, Peace Con, provided a timely opportunity for convening the peacebuilding community to explore a range of issues impacting the field, such as the challenge of closing civic space. QUNO NY’s UN Representative for Peacebuilding participated in the American Friends Service Committee’s panel on this issue, under the theme of “Unrestricting Space for Peacebuilding and Social Justice.”

21 September marks the International Day of Peace, which was established in 1981 by a unanimous resolution in the UN’s General Assembly. To mark the day, QUNO and over 100 additional peacebuilding organizations from throughout the world issued a statement to United Nations Member States that brings attention to peace concerns.

QUNO's August 2019 issue of the Geneva Reporter newsletter is available below. This issue features: an update from our Human Rights & Refugees programme on the important next steps after adoption by the UN of the Global Compact on Migration last December; ; highlights about our recent prevention activities for human rights and sustaining peace; approaches to people and nature centered climate policy; and a QUNO Q&A with our newest Representative, Joachim Monkelbaan.

 The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) is committed to the abolition of the death penalty in all its forms. We believe that bringing light to the issue of the impact of the parental death penalty on children contributes to the broader abolitionist movement and can contribute to the eradication of the death penalty worldwide.

The issue of the impact on children of parents sentenced to death or executed is applicable to all countries, and at all stages of the process, from arrest through to post-execution; there are parents everywhere. Focusing on the experience of the children who are affected can help in turn to humanize those sentenced to death, by representing them as people who give and receive love—as individual human beings, and not only as the crimes they may have committed.

This set of briefing tools is intended to inform decision makers, including defence lawyers, sentencers and legislators, and also diplomats and State representatives, of the impact on children and the relevant international legal standards in order to change policy and practice.

French and English language versions are available below.

Read QUNO New York’s newsletter, In & Around the UN, featuring articles on:

• Landmark changes to the UN system
• Attending FWCC Section of the Americas Meeting
• Partnering with the UN to strengthen inclusive approaches for peace

and more from New York.

The 2019 QUNO Review provides a brief introduction to QUNO and our way of working, as well as an overview of our areas of work. Learn more about our past year of our work and see where we are headed in 2019.

This paper presents a legal analysis of the protection of the human rights of children of parents sentenced to death or executed. An earlier legal analysis by the Quaker United Nations Office explored the effects of parental imprisonment on the rights of the child. This analysis does not repeat the points made there regarding the effects on children when a parent is imprisoned, but instead focuses on the particular impact on the rights of the child of a parent’s death sentence or execution. 

On 3 December, QUNO NY Director, Andrew Tomlinson, spoke as the only NGO representative on a high-level panel discussion, The place of human rights in a reformed United Nations: A transatlantic human rights dialogue, held at UN headquarters.  The panel was convened by  Switzerland and Germany as the Co-Chairs of the Human Rights/Conflict Prevention Caucus, the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR) and Universal Rights Group (URG). 

In his remark, Mr. Tomlinson sought to underscore that  the promotion  and protection of human rights is both the foundation of peace and security, sustainable development, and conflict prevention, and is the key force to achieving the 2030 Agenda’s aspiration of fostering peaceful, just and inclusive societies.  At this meeting, attended by member states and UN colleagues, Mr. Tomlinson reflected that, not only are human rights the backbone to prevention, sustainable peace, and sustainable development, human rights also codify our common humanity, providing the foundation for human dignity and just societies. Human rights, he said, "give us the words to say I see you, I know you, I am you, to every child, woman and man". 

The UN derives much of its relevance and legitimacy from its embrace of human rights as an organizing principle and a moral driver. QUNO is honored to have contributed to this, and future, dialogues.

Can energy ever be used as a tool for peacebuilding instead of a cause of conflict? What peacebuilding tools are already at our disposal for reducing the likelihood of violent conflict related to energy extraction and natural resource stress related to climate change? This publication explores the role of decentralized renewable energy as a peacebuilding tool, in global efforts for a net-zero carbon energy transition.