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31 March 2025
Authored by Adam Day and Emma Bapt, our recent two-part research series explores how the United Nations' human rights system can enhance its role in early warning and conflict prevention.
The first brief, 'From Signals to Action – How the UN Human Rights System Can Deliver Early Warning and Conflict Prevention', examines how human rights data from the UN system can signal rising risks of violent conflict. Through case studies of Syria, Mali, South Sudan, Ukraine, and Myanmar, the report highlights how the UN’s human rights system already generates a wealth of information that clearly indicates growing risks of violent conflict. However, many of these signals were buried in long reports or spread out across different bodies of information that made them difficult to access or understand. The research also found that:
Building on these findings, the second brief, 'Operationalizing Prevention – How the UN Human Rights System Can Connect Early Warning to Action', shifts the focus to actionable steps for turning these signals into preventive measures and offers concrete policy recommendations. It identifies critical gaps including:
By addressing these challenges, the report underscores how the Human Rights Council (HRC) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) can play a more decisive role in preventing large-scale human rights violations and violent conflicts.
As the UN prepares for the 2025 Peacebuilding Architecture Review, these insights offer a timely roadmap for enhancing global peace and security efforts.
These papers forms part of a larger research on human rights and prevention - exploring how the human rights system can serve as a tool in conflict prevention, resilience and early warning.
Geneva Academy
The Geneva Human Rights Platform contributed to key discussions on AI, human rights, and sustainable digital governance at the World Economic Forum 2025.
Geneva Academy
The 2024 Annual Conference of the Geneva Human Rights Platform (GHRP), held on 5 November at Maison de la Paix, focused on the theme Human Rights System Under Pressure: A Reason to Expand Connectivity.
Adobe
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ICRC
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The Geneva Human Rights Platform contributes to this review process by providing expert input via different avenues, by facilitating dialogue on the review among various stakeholders, as well as by accompanying the development of a follow-up resolution to 68/268 in New York and in Geneva.
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To unpack the challenges raised by artificial intelligence, this project will target two emerging and under-researched areas: digital military technologies and neurotechnology.
Geneva Academy
Geneva Academy