On 10th November, and in partnership with the Geneva Human Rights Platform at the Geneva Academy and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, QUNO hosted an event with the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights (UN Working Group) to discuss their latest report to the General Assembly focused on conflict-affected areas.

QUNO has been working on the human rights of migrants at the international level to promote the protection of human rights of all regardless of migration status. Recently, QUNO has been working more on relating structural racism to migration policies, this work recognises that in order to achieve migration justice we must understand the role racism plays in migration laws and policy.

In recognition of the impact of COVID-19 on the world and global peace and security, the United Nations (UN) Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) has convened a series of conversations that have welcomed UN staff working at both the country level and headquarters level to share insights on their understanding of peacebuilding in the context of the pandemic. QUNO Director, Andrew Tomlinson, was invited to be interviewed for such a discussion, with QUNO serving as the first civil society organization to share reflections in this series.

This updated paper is intended to help migrants, NGOs and other stakeholders to engage with the Regional Migration Reviews as part of their work to improve the promotion and protection of the human rights of migrants. The Global Compact for Migration (GCM), adopted in 2018, is a significant commitment from governments to take a people centred and human rights based approach to migration policy and to work together towards this. The GCM invites regions to undertake reviews of the implementation of the compact every four years starting in 2020.

As the Secretary-General boldly states in his 2020 report on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace, “civil society engagement and participation is indispensable to peacebuilding.” Civil society organizations (CSOs), practitioners and individual leaders are often the primary peacebuilding agents, working directly to negotiate and mediate conflict, supporting community reconciliation and rebuilding, and carrying out a range of programs and efforts to strengthen the very social fabric of society.

QUNO was pleased to have delivered two oral statements drawing attention to the human rights of migrants at the 45th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva.