This year marks the 25 anniversary of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action for Human Rights. This landmark text paved the way for significant human rights advances. It helped spearhead the creation of new laws and human rights institutions offering stronger protection worldwide. On this anniversary, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) and the UN’s Human Rights Office calls on EU Member States to continue to stand up for the rights of everyone across Europe.

On 12 June 2018, the UN Human Rights Regional Office for Europe (OHCHR) sounded alarm over the backsliding of human rights in Europe, the exploitation of people’s fears to justify exclusionary measures and the erosion of civil society space.

The United Nations human rights mechanisms have recently adopted several reports, statements and documents to clarify the human rights of migrants, asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons.

My name is Rafael Saavedra. I live in Brussels where I work for the United Nations Human Rights Regional Office for Europe.

We, the undersigned civil society and UN organizations, are concerned by proposals now under consideration as part of the ongoing reform of the Common European Asylum System which would allow the use of coercion to take the fingerprints and facial images of children.

Human rights are the field par excellence in which the EU can add value to the actions of individual Member States. This is the central argument in the position paper launched today by the UN Human Rights Regional Office for Europe (OHCHR) on EU financing after 2020.

Human Rights Day is an opportunity to express our personal commitment to human rights, which begin in small places, close to home, as Eleanor Roosevelt said.

On 21 November 2017, a Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) will hold hearings in a case on the meaning of the word “spouse” in the 2004 EU Freedom of Movement Directive and its application to same-sex couples.