Trade : US again blocks appointment of Appellate Body members at WTO (PRIV)
(D. Ravi Kanth, Geneva)
For the 84th time, the United States on 24 February blocked a request from Colombia on behalf of 130 countries to start the selection process to fill the seven vacancies at the World Trade Organization's Appellate Body, a recurring development that has stymied the enforcement function of the global trade body, said people familiar with the development.

UN : Human rights edifice has never been under so much strain, says Turk (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Penang)
The international system is going through a tectonic shift, and the human rights edifice "we have built up so painstakingly over decades has never been under so much strain," according to Mr Volker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Ukraine : Accountability & justice must take precedence, say UN experts (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Penang)
On the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, more than twenty United Nations human rights experts issued a joint statement in which they called for accountability, and warned that without guarantees for human rights and justice, there can be no peace.