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Aaron Rhodes on human rights defenders in Iran at the 28th session of the UN Human Rights Council. (Opens in a new window)

For decades, Japanese authorities have looked the other way when families have attempted to force adult children to recant their religious faith by abducting them and subjecting them to physical and psychological coercion.

On 26 June, the United National Human Rights Council adopted a resolution concerning Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with respect to human rights. Unfortunately, some of the states with the world's worst child labor records are promoting promulgation of the treaty that, while unlikely to have any impact on victims, will obscure their own corruption in a fog of anti-free enterprise rhetoric.

The pre-eminence of state over individual is rising again. It seems that references to freedom are increasingly rare in the international human rights system, receding in proportion to the rise of a new rhetoric of human rights.

Is the right to peaceful protest a fundamental human right? In Europe the answer seems to depend on whom you protest against. The Freedom Rights Project's Aaron Rhodes and Jacob Mchangama exam the Chinese state visits to several European countries, where diplomatic sensitivities were prioritized at the cost of the rights of pro-Tibetan peaceful protesters.

The Freedom Rights Project Dr. Aaron Rhodes recently addressed the Council of Europe, warning against the proposed resolution on "The Protection of Minors Against Excesses of Sects". Dr. Rhodes is in agreement with numerous human rights NGOs that the resolution would weaken human rights protections and possibly inspire violations.

The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief recently explained that religious intolerance and hatred needed to be tackled by "trust-building" and not by prohibiting critical or even hostile speech. The Freedom Rights Project Aaron Rhodes blogs on the issue from the 25th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Under the rhetoric of the Right to Development and indivisibility of human rights, external debt is being subsumed into human rights discourse, as championed by debtor states. The Freedom Rights Project's Aaron Rhodes reports on the discussion on foreign debt and human rights obligations at the 25th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders has not been received well by states such as China, Russia and Venezuela, with allegations that human rights activists can "split societies apart and sabotage the social order". The Freedom RIghts Projects' Aaron Rhodes blogs from Geneva, at the UN Human Rights Council's 25th regular session.

859 prisoners were recently pardoned by the Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. However, as highlighted by Aaron Rhodes of the Freedom Rights Project, this amnesty did not extend to political prisoners.