In January 2025, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights appealed for how much funding to support human-rights work worldwide?
- (a)$300 Million
- (b)$400 Million
- (c)$500 Million
- (d)$600 Million
Correct — C, $500 Million.
In January 2025 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, launched his office's annual appeal and asked donors for $500 Million to pay for UN human rights work around the world through the year.
That request is the UN Human Rights Appeal: OHCHR's yearly ask for voluntary money, on top of the share the office draws from the UN regular budget. It pays for field presences, monitoring and reporting, and secretariat support to the Human Rights Council, the treaty bodies and the special procedures.
Carry away the shape, not only the digit. The figure is a voluntary-funding target the office asks for, not a budget it is guaranteed; the UN Human Rights Appeal 2025 was published in January 2025.
- (a)$300 Million — The January 2025 appeal sought US$500 million in voluntary funding, so $300 million falls short of the amount announced. All four options are neighbouring round numbers, which means the stored digit is the whole question.
What gives this option its pull is the sheer scale of a worldwide human-rights operation — field offices, monitors and treaty-body support easily run into hundreds of millions a year. Plausible scale is not the announced figure, and only the announced figure earns the mark.
- (b)$400 Million — This is the nearest neighbour below the keyed amount, and the stem's wording gives you nothing to separate the two — only the remembered number does.
The distinction worth holding is that the appeal is a request for voluntary contributions, not an assessed bill sent to member states. What donors actually pledge in a year can land well away from what was asked, so a vague sense of "about four hundred million" is not evidence about the appeal's headline figure.
- (d)$600 Million — This overshoots the amount the appeal asked for. Its pull comes from reading the appeal as the whole cost of running OHCHR for the year.
The appeal covers the voluntary slice of OHCHR's funding, which sits alongside the office's allocation inside the UN regular budget — about US$194 million in 2025.
Add that regular-budget share to the US$500 million sought and you are describing a combined requirement near US$700 million, which is not the figure the January 2025 appeal itself carried.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is the UN Secretariat's human-rights department, headed by the High Commissioner. The post itself was created by the General Assembly in 1993.
Its money arrives in two streams: an allocation inside the UN regular budget, and voluntary contributions from states and other donors. The annual UN Human Rights Appeal is how the office asks for that second stream, stating a headline requirement for the year ahead.
OHCHR's mandate stretches across country and regional field presences, monitoring and reporting, and secretariat support to the Human Rights Council, the treaty bodies and the special procedures. The appeal is where the office puts a price on that year's work.
For an exam stem, a number like this sits at the junction of two things — an institution's mandate and a dated announcement. Knowing the institution is what lets you place the number rather than guess at it.
- In January 2025 the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights appealed for US$500 million to fund human-rights work worldwide.
- The UN Human Rights Appeal seeks voluntary contributions; OHCHR separately receives an allocation from the UN regular budget.
- The post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was created by General Assembly resolution 48/141, adopted in December 1993.
- That resolution followed the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in June 1993.
- Volker Türk of Austria took office as High Commissioner on 17 October 2022, after Michelle Bachelet's term ended on 31 August 2022.
- OHCHR is headquartered in Geneva and maintains an office in New York.
- OHCHR provides secretariat support to the Human Rights Council, the human rights treaty bodies and the special procedures.
Two funding streams, one headline number: the January 2025 appeal asked for US$500 million in voluntary money, alongside OHCHR's regular-budget allocation.
- Four neighbouring round numbers mean a half-recalled figure is worth nothing — store the amount together with the month and the body that announced it.
- The appeal is a funding request, not OHCHR's total budget and not the sum finally received; blurring those three yields three different numbers.
- The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights heads OHCHR; the similar-sounding UN High Commissioner for Refugees runs a separate office whose appeals are of a far larger order.
- "January 2025" anchors the item to one year's appeal, so a figure carried over from another year's appeal reads as knowledge and still loses the mark.
- OHCHR is a Secretariat office; the Human Rights Council is the intergovernmental body it services. Attributing the appeal to the Council misidentifies who issued it.
One way is the straight figure question, as here: the stem fixes the month and the office, the options are neighbouring round numbers, and only the exact amount separates them.
The other way is institutional — who launched the appeal, which office it funds, which resolution created the post, where the office sits in the UN structure. There the number matters less than knowing OHCHR from the Human Rights Council.
UPPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q1332025Same terrain — a human-rights item that turns entirely on one exact datum, with the options offering close alternatives. What differs is the type of datum: UPPSC asks you to check calendar pairings of observance days, where Human Rights Day belongs to 10 December rather than any January date, while UKPSC asks for a funding amount from a dated announcement. One is settled from a fixed calendar, the other from a single January 2025 event.
MPPSC_2022_PRE_PaperI_Q232022Both sit inside human-rights institutional machinery, and both reward knowing which body does what. MPPSC works on India's National Human Rights Commission — a statutory domestic body under the Protection of Human Rights Act — and tests its functions, such as research and encouraging organisations in the field. UKPSC works on a UN Secretariat office and tests a figure from its annual appeal. Function of the body versus figure of the year.
RPSC_2018_PRE_Prelims2018_Q572018The same testing device — an institution paired with dates and numbers you either hold exactly or lose. RPSC operates at state level, on the Rajasthan State Human Rights Commission's constitution and composition; this UKPSC item operates at the international level, on OHCHR's annual funding appeal. A state commission created under Indian statute and a UN Secretariat office are different creatures, so only the study habit transfers.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The post of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was created by a General Assembly resolution adopted in:
- (a)1948
- (b)1966
- (c)1993
- (d)2006
Answerc — 1993. The General Assembly created the post by resolution 48/141, adopted in December 1993, following the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna earlier that year.1948 is when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted and 1966 when the two International Covenants were adopted — standard-setting moments, not the creation of the office. 2006 is when the Human Rights Council replaced the Commission on Human Rights, which is a different body from OHCHR.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The annual UN Human Rights Appeal issued by OHCHR is best described as:
- (a)A request for voluntary contributions supplementing the office's regular-budget funding
- (b)An assessment of dues payable by all UN member states
- (c)A Security Council instrument for financing human-rights components of peacekeeping
- (d)A consolidated humanitarian relief appeal coordinated by OCHA
Answera — the appeal asks donors for voluntary money that supplements what OHCHR receives inside the UN regular budget. That is precisely what the instrument is.Assessed dues (b) are fixed through the General Assembly's scale of assessments, not raised by an appeal.
Peacekeeping (c) is financed through its own assessed accounts, and the Security Council's role is mandating, not fundraising for OHCHR. Humanitarian appeals (d) are coordinated by OCHA and cover relief operations, a separate track from OHCHR's human-rights mandate.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Volker Türk, who launched the 2025 UN Human Rights Appeal, took office as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in succession to:
- (a)Navi Pillay
- (b)Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
- (c)Michelle Bachelet
- (d)Mary Robinson
Answerc — Michelle Bachelet, the High Commissioner whose place Türk took. Her term ended on 31 August 2022 and Türk took office on 17 October 2022; in the weeks between, Deputy High Commissioner Nada Al-Nashif held charge as Acting High Commissioner.Navi Pillay (a) served from 2008 to 2014 and Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein (b) from 2014 to 2018 — Zeid preceded Bachelet rather than Türk. Mary Robinson (d) held the post in the office's early years, leaving in 2002.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The annual UN Human Rights Appeal is launched by:
- (a)The President of the Human Rights Council
- (b)The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
- (c)The UN Secretary-General
- (d)The President of the General Assembly
Answerb — the High Commissioner. The appeal is OHCHR's own fundraising instrument and is issued in the name of the High Commissioner who heads that office.The President of the Human Rights Council (a) presides over an intergovernmental body for which OHCHR acts as secretariat — a different role from funding the office. The Secretary-General (c) heads the Secretariat as a whole, and the President of the General Assembly (d) presides over its sessions; neither issues this appeal.