United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has said Ireland has sent a message to the world with its overwhelming support for gay marriage.

Slowly and forensically, layer by granular layer, the human rights treaty bodies have been building a three-dimensional model of Ireland’s compliance with its international obligations, writes Mark Kelly.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Hamas and the Islamic State group (IS) are “branches of the same poisonous tree,” both bent on world domination through terror, just as the Nazis were.

Militants from the Islamic State (IS) group carried out a mass killing of hundreds of Iraqi soldiers captured when the extremists overran a military base north of Baghdad in June, a leading international watchdog has said.

I would like to express my outrage and embarrassment that this government used its place on the inter-governmental Human Rights Council to do absolutely nothing about the atrocities in Gaza.

Sinn Féin has written to the Taoiseach asking for him to recall the Dáíl from its nine-week summer break to discuss the crisis in Gaza.

Minister of State for Justice and Equality Aodhán Ríordán is to bring a damning United Nations’ report on Ireland’s human rights record to the "heart of the Oireachtas".

Ireland’s refusal to support a United Nations inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Gaza is a dereliction of the state’s proud humanitarian history, it has been claimed.

At least eight massacres have been perpetrated in Syria by President Bashar Assad’s regime and its supporters and one has been carried out by rebels over the past year and a half, a UN commission has said.

There are “reasonable grounds” to believe that limited quantities of toxic chemicals have been used as weapons in at least four attacks in Syria’s civil war, a UN report said, but more evidence is needed to determine the precise chemical agents and who used them.

The Israeli government’s settlement policy has clearly violated the rights of Palestinians and breaches one of the Geneva Conventions, a UN report says.

Israel has become the first nation to miss a UN review of its human rights record without giving a reason.

Travellers who abuse the rights given to them by the State must be “confronted head on”, according to the Sinn Féin TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, who is the first member of the Dáil from a Traveller background.

The Irish Government should trawl its documents archive to support the family of a solicitor murdered by Northern Ireland loyalists with state support, it was claimed.

The best thing that can happen to any of us, despite all of our what-if lotto fantasies, is to be given an opportunity to do good.

Ireland was elected to the UN Human Rights Council for the first time today.

Human rights activist Paul Gordon Lauren says moral outrage alone is not enough, action is crucial, writes Dan Buckley

Syrian jets have fired on Lebanese territory in one of the most serious cross-border violations since the country was plunged into turmoil 18 months ago.

Members of Syria’s armed opposition have subjected detainees to torture and committed summary executions, an international human rights group has said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged the world's foremost human rights body to keep up the pressure on major powers to end the civil war and rights abuses in Syria.

Syrian government forces and militia have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity on civilians, a UN expert panel has concluded.

Syrian government forces and militia have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity on civilians, a UN expert panel has concluded.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision-making was badly flawed as he oversaw a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound ship two years ago, a government report claims.

The Syrian government's violent crackdown on civilian protesters indicates crimes against humanity have taken place since last March and are continuing, the UN human rights chief said today.

A government committee is to hold an emergency debate on Syria in Dublin today.

IT has been reported that the Government is going to seek election to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

IRELAND will step up its continued support of human rights globally, as it seeks election to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Taoiseach announced.

More than 5,000 people have died in the nine-month Syrian uprising, the UN’s human rights chief has said.

Syria’s deputy foreign minister has hit back at critics of the country’s human rights record saying it is under attack from criminals who have killed 1,100 citizens with arms supplied by neighbouring countries.

JUSTICE Minister Alan Shatter will today be cross-examined on Ireland’s human rights obligations — civil, political, economic, social and cultural — at a hearing which is the first of its kind for this country.

SYRIAN dissidents are urging US President Barack Obama to call on Syria’s president to quit power immediately and to press for UN sanctions against Damascus.

THE top UN human rights body last night declared there should be no discrimination or violence against people based on their sexual orientation, in a vote that Islamic states firmly rejected.

THE embattled regime of Muammar Gaddafi has vehemently denied accusations by a UN panel and Western nations that Libyan government forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The embattled regime of Muammar Gaddafi today vehemently denied accusations by a UN panel and Western nations that Libyan government forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Four people were killed when Syrian army troops backed by tanks and three helicopters took a prominent mosque that had been controlled by residents in a besieged southern city today, a witness said.

Military reinforcements poured into the besieged southern Syrian town of Daraa today, a day after President Bashar Assad unleashed deadly force to crush a months-old revolt, killing at least 65 people.

NATIONS yesterday agreed to launch a UN-led investigation of Syria’s bloody crackdown on its uprising, demanding that its government immediately stop the violence, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on the news media and access to the internet.

Nations today agreed to launch a UN-led investigation of Syria's bloody crackdown on its uprising, demanding that its government immediately stop the violence, release political prisoners and lift restrictions on the news media and access to the internet.

The US Senate condemned the “gross and systematic violations of human rights in Libya” and demanded that its leader Muammar Gaddafi leave office.

The EU imposed its own arms embargo, visa ban and other sanctions on Libya today as part of an escalating global effort to halt Muammar Gaddafi’s crackdown on rebels.

The UN’s top human rights official has called on the world to back the popular revolts shaking the Middle East.

The US government is set to throw its weight behind a European effort to expel Libya from the UN’s top human rights body and name a special investigator to look into alleged atrocities committed by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

ISRAEL must lift its military blockade of the Gaza Strip and invite an independent, fact-finding mission to investigate its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a United Nations rights body said.

The United Nations' most powerful body will meet next week to discuss a report that accused both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in Gaza.