In March, QUNO organized a side event at the Human Rights Council on “Procedural Rights and the Environment: Preventing conflict around water, land and food". Procedural rights include the right to information, public participation in decision-making and right to remedy and complement substantive rights such as the right to life or the right to food. Jonathan Woolley of QUNO chaired the event and the Permanent Representatives of Ethiopia and Chile to the UN in Geneva spoke on existing and planned legal frameworks relating to the environment in Africa and Latin America, respectively.

In December, The Supreme Court in British Columbia, Canada, overturned a decision to close the mother and baby unit at Alouette Correctional Centre for Women, on the grounds that it violated the rights of both the mothers and the babies. In the judgement, Justice Ross quoted QUNO’s publication Collateral Convicts, by Oliver Robertson. In addition, one of the experts cited the Kyiv Declaration on Women’s Health in Prison, in which QUNO and other Friends were involved. 

Quaker House welcomed many guests during the Eighth Session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. QUNO and our colleagues focused on the topic of conflict prevention, post-conflict peacebuilding and the promotion of durable peace, rule of law and governance within the proposed framework for development post-2015 by engaging with side events and making statements.

On 19 and 20 February Diane Hendrick participated in the  seminar “Towards a more Coherent Peacebuilding Policy Community”, in Johannesburg organised by the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), a Civil Society organisation based in South Africa, which specializes in the field of conflict analysis, resolution, interventions and management on the African continent.

Small-scale farmer innovation plays an essential role in food security. During this panel discussion, speakers and participants considered how to design a coherent legal regime that supports all types of innovation and management systems, including those of small-scale farmers. Speakers included: Susan Bragdon, QUNO; Shakeel Bhatti, International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture; Isabel Lopez Noriega, Bioversity International; and Antony Taubman, World Trade Organization. The event was moderated by QUNO's Caroline Dommen.

These briefing papers on sui generis options for plant variety protection (PVP) are to encourage and support governmental officials and others who wish to develop a PVP system that matches their country’s needs. These briefing papers are the third and fourth in a series on intellectual property, food and agriculture.

Members of the QUNO New York staff attended a memorial service at the Riverside Church on 11 December to honour the life of Nelson Mandela. While we are deeply saddened by his death, we are reminded that the work towards a more just and peaceful world is as important now as ever.

Following an international selection process, we are pleased to announce that Lindsey Fielder Cook has been appointed as the new QUNO Representative on Climate Change. Lindsey has a background in peacebuilding and climate change, and has worked on humanitarian and donor coordination efforts with the United Nations in the West Bank and Gaza, the Former Yugoslavia, Somalia, and on communications for the United Nations Volunteers in Bonn. Lindsey will take forward this work from the newly established QUNO meeting space in Bonn.

QUNO - together with the UN Global Compact, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and the Constructive Engagement Group - held a side event on Business, Human Rights and Conflict at the 2013 UN Forum on Business and Human Rights. Diane Hendrick of QUNO moderated the discussion. During this event, Lynn Finnegan from QUNO spoke about the impact that business activities can have on local communities’ access to natural resources such as water, land and food. QUNO also outlined good practices for effective company-community engagement.​