World’s biggest jeweler will only sell lab-grown diamonds
This week, the world’s biggest jeweler Pandora announced it will cease to sell all mined diamonds, and switch exclusively to selling lab-made diamonds, as the BBC reports.
Human rights
This archive tracks real progress on human rights: legal victories, policy shifts, community-led movements, and court rulings that expand protections for people around the world. Stories here focus on what’s working — and who is making it happen.
Saudi Arabia abolishes “Ta’zir flogging” as punishment
The Saudi Human Rights Commission welcomed the decision, and said: “This decision ensures that those who were once sentenced with floggings, will now receive fines or prison sentences instead.”
Scientists are using AI to find hotel rooms being used for child sex trafficking
Washington University engineers developed AI that recognizes features of a hotel room from a photo and identify where it may have been taken, offering new leads to fight child trafficking.
500,000 Marriott employees have now been trained to watch for sex traffickers
Already offered in 17 languages, the same training will one day reach 700,000 people internationally, everyone who works within the Marriott universe.
Mars Inc. to spend $1 billion over ten years to combat deforestation, child labor, and poverty in its cocoa supply chain
Under the new sustainability scheme – which will cost the company $1 billion over 10 years – all the cocoa it buys will be responsibly sourced by 2025, the parent company of M&Ms, Snickers, and Twix said.
Saudi government says it will allow women to drive
Women in Saudi Arabia will be permitted to drive in the kingdom, according to a royal decree issued in Riyadh on Tuesday that overturned one of the most widely criticized restrictions on human rights.
Slovenia becomes first EU country to make drinking water a constitutional right
Constitutional water rights arrived in Slovenia in November 2016, when parliament amended the national constitution to declare drinking water a fundamental right and barred its sale as a market commodity. It was the first European Union member state to do so, passed with rare cross-party support in a country of just over two million people.
Cuba scraps mandatory exit permits, freeing citizens to travel abroad
Cuba’s exit permit system ended in January 2013, lifting a decades-old rule that required citizens to seek government approval before traveling abroad. Most Cubans now needed only a passport and a destination visa, though doctors, scientists, and known dissidents still faced hurdles. It was a partial but real opening toward a basic freedom of movement.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child enters into force worldwide
The Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force on 2 September 1990, making children rights-holders under international law for the first time. Drafted at the UN and now ratified by 196 countries, it remains the most widely adopted human rights treaty ever — a quiet turning point in how the world sees childhood itself.
UN General Assembly adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in Paris on December 10, 1948, when 48 nations voted yes and none opposed. Drafted by a committee that included Eleanor Roosevelt, Lebanon’s Charles Malik, China’s Peng Chun Chang, and India’s Hansa Mehta, its 30 articles became the most translated document in the world.