November 2025 Human Rights Newsletter: Submission to the UN Committee Against Torture; UNHR expands to Lisbon; major community win for Indigenous rights; & more from the University Network
In this edition:
Greetings from the Executive Director
UNHR presents evidence of widespread torture of Palestinians in Israeli detention before UN Committee Against Torture
A new chapter for UNHR’s human rights training in Lisbon
Heavy sand extraction in Guinea-Bissau threatens the rights of local communities, UNHR’s report confirms
Community win: Supreme Court of Peru rules in favor of FENAMAD and former president Julio Cusurichi Palacios
Highlighting displaced communities two years after ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh
UNHR returns to Bolivia to finish documentary on 2019 massacres
Breaking down Mexico’s new judicial landscape on pretrial detention
Defending Ngöbe land rights in Panama
UNHR in the news
Greetings from the Executive Director
My thanks to all of you for your support over the years. Without you, our work to defend rights and train advocates would simply not be possible.
The countdown to Giving Tuesday is on. We’ve set a goal of reaching 100 gifts by December 2 to help sustain our work in human rights advocacy and defense. Every contribution, no matter the size, helps us train the next generation of advocates, support frontline partners, and respond to communities facing urgent human rights abuses. At a moment when democracy and the rule of law are under threat, your support ensures we can continue this fight.
– Jim Cavallaro, Executive Director
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UNHR presents evidence of widespread torture of Palestinians in Israeli detention before UN Committee Against Torture
In collaboration with Justiça Global, UNHR submitted a report to the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) on Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians in captivity. Team members of UNHR traveled to Geneva to present their findings to the Committee in its 83rd Session. Representatives from the State of Israel and CAT members discussed the evidence of pervasive and systematic torture in Israeli detention since October 7, 2023. The Committee will deliberate and publish their concluding observations at the end of the session later this month.
Learn more about our work on Palestine
A new chapter for UNHR’s human rights training in Lisbon
UNHR has launched the LLM in Human Rights Advocacy in partnership with the NOVA School of Law in Lisbon! The program, which is open to both lawyers and non-lawyers, combines rigorous academic study with hands-on training and engagement in human rights practice.
This fall, ten students began their first semester on the NOVA campus, studying human rights advocacy with our own Jim Cavallaro, and legal standards supervised by NOVA faculty. In the spring, they’ll move into a series of intensive courses taught by UNHR experts and other practitioners, before starting their practicum placements next summer.
Beginning in January 2026, we will welcome the first Lisbon-based cohort of the Advocacy and Community-based Training Semester (ACTS). Students from Wellesley College and Wesleyan University will spend the semester at NOVA studying human rights principles and gaining field experience through advocacy projects led by UNHR.
Learn more about the LLM in Human Rights Advocacy and the ACTS Portugal Program.
Heavy sand extraction in Guinea-Bissau threatens the rights and livelihoods of local communities, UNHR report confirms
In July, the University Network for Human Rights, in collaboration with Justiça Global and with support from UNDP Guinea-Bisseau, published An Unfolding Human Rights Crisis: the Extraction of Heavy Sands and the Impact on Human and Environmental Rights in Varela, Guinea-Bissau.
The report stems from months of fieldwork and documentation led by joint teams of Bissau-Guinean activists and researchers from UNHR and Justiça Global. University students from the United States also contributed to the project, travelling to Lisbon with UNHR during the spring to conduct background research and legal analysis.
Our documentation details how heavy sand extraction in the northern and climate-vulnerable region of Cacheu has endangered the livelihoods and collective land rights of cross-border communities such as the Felupe people. We also attest to the serious violation of collective land rights and the deprivation of liberty of five community leaders following protests and an arson attack at a heavy sand extraction site in the village of Nhiquim.
Community win: Supreme Court of Peru rules in favor of FENAMAD and former president Julio Cusurichi Palacios
On July 21, 2025, the Supreme Court of Peru ruled in favor of the Native Federation of the Madre de Dios River and Affluents (FENAMAD) and its former president, Julio Cusurichi Palacios. FENAMAD, a community-led organization that defends the rights of Indigenous peoples in isolation, such as the Mashco Piro, was facing defamation proceedings for its opposition to the activities of a logging company.
UNHR’s legal experts contributed to FENAMAD’s defense by leading the submission of an amicus curiae brief grounded in analysis conducted by a former clinical student at the Yale School of the Environment. The brief was signed by renowned legal experts, including United Nations experts and former commissioners of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The arguments made by the Peruvian Supreme Court aligned closely with those laid out in our joint amicus brief.
In light of this success, our Associate Director, Sofía Galván, will lead a discussion on the role of international standards in defending the rights of Indigenous communities on November 19, alongside EarthRights International and FENAMAD.
Highlighting displaced communities two years after ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh
This past summer, UNHR supervisors and students traveled to Armenia in our ninth fact-finding trip to the region to understand the new rights issues facing people forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh before and during the September 2023 ethnic cleansing.
During a week of interviews across Yerevan, we learned of continued efforts by the displaced community to fight erasure of their identity, culture, and right to return home amid the developing normalization agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. These experiences and perspectives were detailed for Armenian Weekly through writing, photography, and illustration in “Artsakh remains: Where those displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh are resisting cultural and political erasure.”
UNHR supervisors and researchers have also called for accountability for atrocity crimes two years after the ethnic cleansing and independently reported on concerns that the normalization agreement ignores those displaced in the conflict in recent publications.
UNHR returns to Bolivia to finish documentary on 2019 massacres
Since the 2019 coup and state-sponsored massacres in Sacaba and the Senkata area of El Alto, Bolivia, UNHR has worked closely with survivors and families seeking accountability. This June, UNHR supervisors and three students traveled to Bolivia to complete Madres de Noviembre, our documentary on the 2019 violence and its ongoing impact.
The team travelled to the highlands to interview victims’ family members, human rights defenders, and government officials – including Bolivia’s former president. The film will be released in Bolivia in the coming months. Learn more about our work in Bolivia.
Breaking down Mexico’s new judicial landscape on pretrial detention
Read UNHR Executive Director James Cavallaro and Associate Director Sofía Galván Puente in “Mandatory Pretrial Detention in the Face of the New Judicial Landscape in Mexico,” originally published in Human Rights in Context, September 29, 2025.
Defending Ngöbe Land Rights in Panama
The communities of Charco la Pava, Valle Rey, Guayabal, and Changuinola Arriba were displaced by the 2005 construction of a hydroelectric dam in Bocas del Toro, which caused severe harm to their lands, environment, and livelihoods. UNHR continues to provide legal and strategic support to secure reparations for the Ngöbe people.
Throughout 2025, UNHR partnered with Ngöbe communities and other organizations in pursuit of justice in the Inter-American Human Rights System. Our team accompanied petitioners to a working meeting before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in March, supported negotiations with the Panamanian State in April and will appear before the Inter-American Commission this week in Miami.
Learn more about our work in Panama.
UNHR in the news
I Tried to Deliver Aid to Gaza. Israel Kidnapped and Tortured Me, The Nation
As Azerbaijan Plummets Deeper Into Authoritarianism, Will Trump Respond As Promised?, Newsweek
Home City, USA, The Baffler
The Growing Consensus over Israel’s Genocide in Gaza, Arab Center Washington DC
A list of all the experts saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, Canary
Israel’s “Crime of Apartheid”: New Report by U.S. Professors as Palestinians Mark Nakba Day, Democracy Now!
We are human rights lawyers. Our new report is clear: Israel perpetrates apartheid, The Guardian
As Trump's EPA ends 'environmental justice,' minority communities may pay a price, Reuters
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