On March 15, the United Nations General Assembly voted 170–4 to create a new Human Rights Council, effectively dissolving the oft-criticized Commission on Human Rights. Candidates for the Council will need to be elected by an absolute majority of 96 votes in order to secure a position, and once elected members can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.

Brazil — Here at the great bend of the mighty Xingu River, the Brazilian government is pushing to construct a dam that could end up being the world's second largest, generating huge amounts of hydroelectric power.

The Council of the Yanomami and Ye'kuana Special Indigenous Health District submitted a letter on June 30 to Brazilian Ministers of Justice and Environment demanding expulsion of gold miners that have raided their Amazon reservation. The letter, signed by 30 Yanomami and Ye'kuana community representatives and advocates said, "It's not hard to foresee that we are returning to a situation of social and sanitary chaos like the one we experienced at the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s, when at least a fifth of the Yanomami population died from diseases brought by the prospectors."