Tabby Besley is ready to meet the Queen - complete with her trademark brightly-coloured hair.

As president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, Gillian Triggs represents the nation's conscience. And when our conscience pricks, it's not always welcome.

The commercial mindset that measures well-being in terms of GDP can be insidious, writes Tim Hazledine. Even the welcome focus on reducing child poverty gets justified (by some) as an "investment" in more reliable future workers.

The owners of a liquor store who were found to have racially harassed an employee have lodged an appeal against the judgment, saying they weren't given a chance to defend the claims.

Unions and human rights organisations have long-campaigned against the human rights abuses Fifa has left in its wake, writes Dennis Maga.

Women seeking an abortion are being offered easier access to the procedure with a free, national telephone consultation service that started this week.

The survivor of a camp recounts her 25 terrifying days late last year near the southern Thai town of Padang Besar, where she saw people die every two or three days.

The Syrian Air Force dropped barrel bombs on a market and another civilian area of Aleppo province, killing 71 people.

Italy is now the only western European country that does not recognise either same-sex marriage or civil unions.

Ahead of Lecretia Seales' euthanasia legal battle, two experts say there's a strong case the law here doesn't stop doctors helping mentally competent, terminally ill people to die.

The Privacy Commissioner has criticised Orcon as "ignorant" after a decision against the internet provider saw thousands of dollars in damages awarded to a young soldier.

Unless we take steps to ensure freedom of expression is protected, our way of life is threatened, warns David Rutherford.

Orcon has been ordered to pay out $25,000 to a man whose life was thrown into turmoil after they wrongly referred him to debt collectors.

Yesterday, as the Senate began public hearings into conditions in the Australian-funded detention centre, those words seemed not too far from the truth.

Egyptian Islamists have warned that the world should brace itself for a backlash after the country's first freely elected President Mohamed Morsi was given a death sentence.

Five years after he was arrested for helping his mother to die, a NZ-born doctor has won a landmark victory allowing assisted suicide in South Africa.

A coalition opposed to legalising euthanasia has welcomed the latest legal development in the case of terminally-ill Lecretia Seales.

Hopefully, Chan and Sukumaran's deaths will be a deterrent to other baby gangstas looking to make a quick buck. Then Chan and Sukumaran won't have died in vain, writes Kerre McIvor.

The Saudi Arabian visit was a return to the old Key model of jet setting, glad-handing and grandstanding, which we can now see has never worked, writes Paul Little.

Jack Tame writes: As human beings in 2015, what aspects of our lives today will we reflect on in the future with befuddlement and awe?

After years of objection from right-wing Israeli groups, the Jerusalem District Planning and Building Committee last month approved initial plans for 2500 houses on 150ha of land in the Kidron Valley in Al Sawahra.

The deaths of vulnerable people who are in state care or custody could have less independent scrutiny if proposed law changes go ahead.

I looked back through the archives to see whether Minister for Women, Louise Upston, had ever, in fact, said or done anything actually worthwhile for the women of NZ, writes Dita De Boni.

The executions of Bali Nine duo Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran has drawn much international criticism, but what do those who live in Indonesia think?

Prime Minister John Key has met with the Saudi Arabian king and raised the issue of human rights.

The Nigerian army has rescued 200 girls and 93 women who had been captured by terror group Boko Haram.

Rock superstar Serj Tankian may call NZ home - but today he'll be in Armenia, commemorating the lives of his ancestors lost to genocide 100 years ago.

A judge has granted the legal right of habeas corpus to two chimpanzees being held at a biomedical research facility in the US - a decision that animal rights activists hailed as the first time chimps that had been afforded the status of legal "persons".