Civil Rights

The UN remains committed to the existing timeline of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end global poverty in all its forms and to reduce inequality within every country by 2030.
Protesters are pleased that Hong Kong will no longer be treated differently to other Chinese cities under the new US Hong Kong Autonomy Act, and that the US can now impose economic sanctions on Hong Kong and Chinese officials for human rights violations.
Global poverty can be brought down to about 3% of the world's population by 2030 if an average annual global economic growth rate of nearly 10% in GDP per capita is achieved, and if income inequality is reduced by half.
Reducing income inequality in society must become a key strategy to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
If the 2.5% GDP per capita growth rate in the least-developed countries in the past ten years is maintained during the decade of action, income inequality would need to be reduced by 75% to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
US government departments are issuing an advisory to caution businesses about the risks of supply chain links to entities that engage in human rights abuses, including forced labor in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China.
The risk is especially serious for companies like American semiconductor manufacturer Nvidia, which provides products used in facial recognition technology that could be used by the Chinese government to enable human rights violations.
As concerns grow about how the coronavirus crisis might threaten human rights around the world, the United Nations is calling on countries to adopt a more cooperative, global and human rights-based approach to the pandemic.
At the end of this year, UK financial services firms will lose their passporting rights to deliver services into the EU.
The racial wealth gap is growing: By 2020, median white American households are projected to own 86 times more wealth than African-American households and 68 times more than Latino households.
Clumsy information sharing has taxed U.S. healthcare for decades, but new rules against information blocking establish patients' rights to access their medical data via API.
Washington's sanctions against Tehran have drastically constrained its ability to pay for humanitarian imports and are threatening the health rights of Iranians.
LeBron James and several other athletes and entertainers are forming an advocacy group that will encourage African Americans to vote in the 2020 presidential election, as well as work to protect their voting rights.
In the coming years, the European Commission will attempt to fill the leadership vacuum on global issues, seeking to hold together the remnants of multilateralism and global governance in areas such as trade, human rights and the advancement of science.
There are 23.1 million AAPIs living in the U.S.; Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial segment, growing 46% in the last 10 years: As a group, the buying power of Asian Americans is projected to reach $1.6 trillion by 2024.
The United Nations rapporteur on poverty and human rights acknowledged as much this year by warning against a climate apartheid where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.
The European Commission needs to make it clear to the Chinese government that equal treatment provided to all firms will not be enough if the legal rights of European firms and their employees cannot be sufficiently protected under China's SCS.
The U.K.'s supreme court ruled that a gig worker was entitled to worker's rights - which could increase pressure on some firms to change their business models.
The UK will enact a version of the US's Magnitsky act to sanction officials who may have been involved in human rights abuses in Hong Kong during crackdowns on protests.
Under last year's Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, the United States could impose sanctions on Chinese government officials and security authorities for violating the basic freedoms and rights of the Hong Kong people.
An additional 130 million people may live in extreme poverty by 2030, presenting a major setback for the Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to eliminate poverty and improve other health and inequality measures by the end of the decade.
This year will shape the US court system for generations, with a potential adverse impact on human rights depending on the outcome of the 2020 elections.

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Last updated: 09 August 2020