19 September 2023
Government Statement
Photo Credit: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images
Global Centre Country Advocacy: Afghanistan
18 July 2025
Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, the country has faced an escalating human rights and humanitarian crisis. In the months preceding the takeover, escalating conflict resulted in a sharp rise in civilian casualties and widespread abuses, as Taliban forces launched attacks, and the former Afghan government responded with airstrikes. Throughout 2021 and beyond, in response to the deteriorating situation following the takeover, the Global Centre has engaged in sustained advocacy efforts to help catalyze an appropriate international response.
Mobilizing the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)
In response to the escalating human rights crisis, the HRC convened a special session on 24 August 2021. However, despite the growing crisis, the negotiations failed to create a new monitoring mechanism. In the following weeks, the Global Centre, alongside other civil society organizations, intensified its advocacy to mobilize international attention ahead of the HRC’s 48th session for the creation of a dedicated monitoring mechanism.
Despite these efforts, no such mandate was established. However, the HRC did take a crucial first step by establishing a Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan.
In 2022 following a joint call by the Global Centre and 24 other organizations, the HRC held an urgent debate on 1 July, passing a resolution requesting an enhanced interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan during its 51st session. Ahead of this session, the Global Centre engaged in private bilateral advocacy with UN member states to build support for expanding the Special Rapporteur’s mandate to include the collection and preservation of evidence of human rights violations and abuses. This effort was successful, and the mandate was renewed and expanded during the session.
Calling for gender justice at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
The Taliban de facto authorities have enacted restrictive policies that severely infringe upon the rights of women and girls. These measures perpetuate extreme gender-based discrimination and constitute a flagrant violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). According to the UN Special Rapporteur and the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, the Taliban’s actions may amount to gender persecution and gender apartheid, as they systematically subject women and girls to total domination.
In 2023 the Global Centre, in partnership with the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), worked to encourage states party to CEDAW to initiate proceedings against Afghanistan before the ICJ for violations of CEDAW and/or the Convention on the Political Rights of Women. To facilitate the launch of a case, the Global Centre organized extensive bilateral meetings in New York and in capitals around the world. On 6 July the Global Centre hosted a confidential and closed roundtable with UN member states, Afghan women human rights defenders and several subject-matter experts, including the UN Special Rapporteur, to discuss the potential for ICJ proceedings.
During the 78th UN General Assembly, on 19 September the Global Centre, OSJI and the governments of Albania, Belgium, Cabo Verde, Costa Rica, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Guatemala, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta and Spain, co-hosted a ministerial-level meeting on the systematic gender-based persecution of women and girls in Afghanistan. The event brought together 15 foreign and deputy ministers, other state representatives, UN Women and Afghan women human rights defenders, focusing on practical steps to support Afghan women and girls, including ICJ proceedings.
During the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York in 2024, the Global Centre and the government of Luxembourg co-hosted a ministerial-level meeting to discuss practical steps for improving the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan. The meeting featured Afghan women human rights defenders and aimed to devise strategies for amplifying international efforts to support women’s rights in Afghanistan.
In September 2024 Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, supported by 22 other states, announced they were initiating legal proceedings against Afghanistan before the ICJ for violations of CEDAW.
Source
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
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