Human Rights

UNITED NATIONS - The world's nations began a final push Tuesday for the first legally binding global treaty that would regulate the international arms trade and try to prevent the transfer of weapons to armed groups and terrorists. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is expected to approve the treaty, which has been in the works since 2006, when the United States voted against the resolution that launched the process. The Obama administration later reversed the George W. Bush administration's position and supported an assembly resolution to hold this year's four-week Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty.

WASHINGTON - A House panel on Wednesday approved legislation that would expand the State Department's rewards for justice program to target the world's most serious human-rights abusers, with African warlord Joseph Kony a top target. In a rare moment of bipartisanship, Democratic and Republican members of the Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a bill that would authorize operations for the State Department and speed up the process for U.S. arms sales overseas. The voice vote approval reflected the desire of both parties to complete such a broad-based State Department bill for the first time in a decade.

OSLO, Norway - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi declared Saturday that the Nobel Peace Prize she won while under house arrest 21 years ago helped shatter her sense of isolation and ensured that the world would demand democracy in her military-controlled homeland. Suu Kyi received two standing ovations in Oslo's city hall as she gave her long-delayed acceptance speech to the Norwegian Nobel Committee in front of Norway's King Harald, Queen Sonja, and about 600 dignitaries.

BEIRUT - The U.N.'s top human-rights body voted overwhelmingly Friday to condemn Syria over the slaughter of more than 100 civilians last week, but Damascus appeared impervious to the crescendo of global condemnation following a string of horrific massacres. Syria's most important ally and protector, Russia, voted against the measure by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. Russia has refused to support any move that could lead to foreign intervention in Syria, Moscow's last significant ally in the Middle East.

CAIRO - An international rights group on Saturday accused the Egyptian armed forces of beating and torturing protesters arrested during antimilitary demonstrations early this month, and said that by permitting such actions the military "enables further abuse. " The three days of street clashes in Cairo that began May 2 and left nine civilians dead were the latest in a string of deadly confrontations between the military and protesters in Egypt since a council of ruling generals took power 15 months ago. In its violent crackdown on the May demonstrations outside the Defense Ministry, the military arrested more than 300 people and referred them to military tribunals.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith has never met the blind Chinese dissident whose dramatic escape from house arrest to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing dominated international news for days. But the New Jersey Republican has kept tabs on Chen Guangcheng's welfare and whereabouts for seven years, ever since Chinese officials jailed Chen for exposing the government's practice of forcing women to undergo abortions and sterilization to comply with China's "one-child" policy. "This hideous practice has hurt so many women," said Smith, a staunch opponent of abortion who has traveled to China six times seeking the release of political prisoners and persecuted Christians.

TRIPOLI, Libya - Human Rights Watch on Saturday urged the new government in Libya to revoke a law that criminalizes glorifying former dictator Moammar Gadhafi and spreading "propaganda" that insults or endangers the state. The measure issued last week was one in a series of laws the National Transitional Council, Libya's interim rulers, issued recently to deal with the Gadhafi's legacy. The laws have come under criticism from international and local rights groups for violating freedom of speech or being too vague to enact.

BEIJING - With a series of quickly choreographed steps, the U.S. and China outlined a tentative deal Friday to send a blind legal activist to America for study and potentially bring a face-saving end to a delicate diplomatic crisis. The arrangements, if kept, promise to give Chen Guangcheng much of what he wanted: a chance to live with his family in safety and to get a formal legal education. It would also allow Washington and Beijing to put aside a rancorous human rights dispute to focus on managing their rivalry for global influence.

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton headed Tuesday to Beijing, where a tense human-rights showdown awaits over the fate of a blind Chinese lawyer said to be under U.S. protection after escaping from house arrest. The issue of Chen Guangcheng's future threatens to overshadow this year's round of high-level strategic and economic talks between the world's two biggest economic powers. Talks begin Thursday. Publicly, the U.S. and Chinese governments have said nothing about the Chen case.

During more than 40 years as a professor and practitioner of international law, Roger S. Clark has occasionally asked himself this question. What's a little boy from Wanganui doing here? Wanganui (wong-a-noo-ee) is the New Zealand city where Clark, 71, grew up. And "here" could be his office at the Rutgers School of Law in Camden, the United Nations headquarters in New York, or the International Court of Justice in the Hague, where he once got 30 minutes to make a case against nuclear warfare.