- one of my main sources of development information, on its list of what it considers to be the most renowned international organizations and networks focused on the promotion of human rights.:
Human rights groupsAmnesty InternationalHeadquarters: London, United Kingdom
Type: nonprofit network
Founded: 1961
Secretary general: Salil Shetty
Focus: research and advocacy is broken down into 25 broad categories focusing on children, indigenous peoples, health and other issues
Members: more than 3 million network supporters, activists and members in more than 150 countries and territories
Amnesty International is arguably the world’s prime, multifaceted human rights organization, operating as both a network and a reliable, detailed research database. Amnesty’s strength lies partly in its girth: Through its offices in more than 80 countries, Amnesty regularly produces short analyses and in-depth reports on issues related to human rights. Amnesty engages its supporters through petitions posted on its website and shared via Facebook or Twitter. Amnesty’s user-friendly website has a search function and allows browsing through by country and topic.
Human Rights FirstHeadquarters: New York City and Washington, D.C., USA
Type: nonprofit
Founded: 1978
President and CEO: Elisa Massimino
Focus: research and advocacy; programs include providing assistance to asylum seekers to the United States and advocating against U.S. counterterrorism measures amounting to torture
Staff: 57 per HRF website
Human Rights First conducts fact-finding and advocacy work on a global scale but often geared toward the U.S. government. For instance, HRF works to protect human rights defenders, refugees and asylum seekers around the globe but often stresses U.S. accountability on these and other issues, whether it is pushing the United States to close its military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or pressing U.S. officials to raise human rights abuses with world leaders. HRF offers a pro bono program for lawyers to represent asylum seekers in the United States, and in a recent publicity stunt, one attorney biked across the United States to raise awareness and funds for the group’s work. HRF’s website is fairly basic but gives a good overview of the human rights situation stateside as well as in certain parts of the Middle East.
Human Rights WatchHeadquarters: New York City, USA
Type: nonprofit
Founded: 1968
Executive director: Kenneth Roth
Focus: research and advocacy to prevent discrimination, uphold political freedom, protect people from inhuman conduct in wartime, and bring offenders to justice
Staff: 280 worldwide
Human Rights Watch compiles information on human rights in nearly every country, often through grass-roots networking. On its website, topics are broken down into 12 broad categories (including refugees, United Nations, health and arms) and even more subcategories, totaling close to 90 listings. Each year, HRW publishes more than 100 studies, including its mammoth
World Report. Its in-depth reports – five were published in May 2011 alone – provide ample information about hard-to-reach regions and marginalized issues.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human RightsHeadquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
Type: U.N. office
Founded: 1993
High commissioner: Navanethem Pillay
Focus: standard-setting, monitoring, on-the-ground implementation
Staff: more than 850 in Geneva, New York, 11 country offices and seven regional offices around the world
As secretariat of the U.N. Human Rights Council, OHCHR works to mainstream a human rights focus through all United Nations programs and agencies. Outside the U.N. system, it facilitates partnerships with various international institutions such as the International Criminal Court, civil society organizations and governments. The office’s website provides fact sheets, research papers as well as free, downloadable training and educational materials such as guides, manuals and handbooks – including some specifically geared toward human rights monitors and social workers. It also showcases routine assessments conducted by its country and regional offices, as well as other background and news.
United for Human RightsHeadquarters: Los Angeles, USA
Type: nonprofit
Founded: 2004
Executive director: Michele Kirkland
Focus: provides free educational materials on human rights
Staff: 3
United for Human Rights makes books, videos and other educational material available free to educators. Its sister organization,
Youth for Human Rights International, produced the acclaimed “
United” anti-bullying music video. United’s website offers a brief explanation of human rights and their history, as well as one-minute public service videos exploring 30 of these rights. The human rights education packages mailed by the nonprofit are geared toward high school and college students, and include a documentary and 24 copies of a booklet that discusses the story of human rights. The website also offers suggestions for taking action in your own community to challenge human rights violations.
International human rights networksAssociation for Women’s Rights in DevelopmentHeadquarters: Toronto, Canada
Type: international network
Founded: 1982
Executive director: Lydia Alpízar Durán
Focus: creates capacity-building strategies to strengthen women’s rights, supports women’s rights advocates and organizations, lobbies international institutions and actors
Members: nearly 5,000 individual and more than 3,000 institutional members in 130 countries
AWID campaigns such as “Where is the Money for Women’s Rights?” and “Influencing Development Actors and Practices for Women’s Rights” involve topical research, networking and lobbying. The association’s Young Feminist Activism initiative offers a way for young feminists to become involved with the organization and to receive a special online newsletter. AWID’s website features reports and news briefs of a feminist bent; its “Urgent Action” section features online petitions and other ways to support feminist human rights defenders and movements that are under threat. The site also showcases gender-related training courses and conferences worldwide, as well as fellowship ads and solicitations for research papers. Outside Toronto, AWID has offices in Mexico City and Cape Town, South Africa.
Child Rights Information NetworkHeadquarters: London, United Kingdom
Type: international network
Founded: 1995
Director: Veronica Yates
Focus: advocacy campaigns and analysis to promote and defend children’s rights
Members: more than 2,100 organizations in 150 countries
Guided by the United Nations’ Convention of the Rights of the Child, CRIN helps to elevate campaigns and coalitions, as well as to enforce treaties, that call for full respect of children’s rights. CRIN’s website includes country pages that don’t just provide news and analysis (in multiple languages) but also links to relevant international and domestic laws ratified by each country. The website also contains topic pages, an “Ask the Expert” function and an advanced search for laws affecting children around the globe.
Global Network of Sex Work ProjectsHeadquarters: Edinburgh, Scotland
Type: international network
Founded: 1990
President: Andrew Hunter
Focus: “influences policy and builds leadership among sex workers”
Members: more than 100 institutions
Evolved from a loose alliance of activists more than 20 years ago, NSWP has emerged as a leader in supporting human rights policy for sex workers. The association and its members oppose the criminalization of sex work. They conduct research and speak out at international health and trafficking forums, as well as various eventsNSWP organizes each year, including the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers in December, the International Sex Workers’ Rights Day in March, and a film festival in London. At these events – and on NSWP’s website – they circulate “Research for Sex Work” and “Making Sex Work Safe,” publications intended for sex workers, researchers, health activists and others. NSWP’s website is fairly basic; it features the work of its partners by region.
Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International (HURIDOCS)
Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
Type: international NGO
Founded: 1982
Executive director: Daniel D’Esposito
Focus: improve documentation methods and information technologies
Members: 40 affiliated NGOs
HURIDOCS provides advice and support to international human rights organizations in various ways, ranging from personalized consultations via phone or email correspondence to on-site support and training. Simply put, the organization helps human rights groups process, analyze, store and present research and other documents in an organized, safe manner. HURIDOCS offers advice on how to best document human rights violations or witness testimonies, for instance, and it engages in longer-term partnerships aimed at setting up documentation management tools that could be used for litigation or other reasons. HURIDOCS tries to provide all of its services free of charge to organizations based in the Global South, and works on a cost-sharing basis with institutions based elsewhere.
International Federation for Human RightsHeadquarters: Paris, France
Type: international network
Foundation: 2009
International Secretariat CEO: Antoine Bernard
Focus: “action priorities” include ending impunity of human rights violators, facilitating the work of human rights defenders and promoting universality of all rights, especially those of women and migrants
Staff: 30 in Paris
Members: 164 organizations
FIDH’s members are active around the globe, including in countries like Myanmar, North Korea and Zimbabwe where human rights work can be tricky. FIDH’s website, which can be viewed in English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian, among other languages, provides easy access to all of its partner organizations – a convenient feature when you’re searching for human rights groups in a particular country. The website also offers timely and in-depth information, press releases and open letters on various issues such as migrants’ rights, terrorism, women’s rights and international justice. Only nonprofits can become FIDH members, although individuals and companies can become “friends” by donating.
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex AssociationHeadquarters: Brussels, Belgium
Type: international network
Founded: 1978
Secretaries general: Gloria Careaga and Renato Sabbadini
Focus: campaigning for the rights of lesbian, gay, bi-, trans- and intersexual people
Members: 690 groups in 110 countries
ILGA works with its partners to draw public and government attention to discrimination against LGBTI persons through programs, protests, media work and diplomacy. ILGA’s website provides ample information on discriminatory practices, laws and attitudes toward people because of their sexual and gender identity; it features an organization directory, topical and regional pages with news and action alerts, as well as a world map that allows site visitors to filter only countries that consider transgenderism a mental illness or punish female-to-female relationships, among a host of other options. Perhaps a unique aspect of the site is the “Your Stories” section, which provides an open forum for LGBTI people to share their experiences and thoughts. Any organization can join ILGA, whose members gather every year or two.
World Organization Against TortureHeadquarters: Geneva, Switzerland
Type: international network
Founded: 1986
Secretary-general: Eric Sottas
Focus: fight against “torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances and all other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”
Members: 297 affiliate members in the SOS-Torture network
The Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture is the world’s main coalition of NGOs fighting torture. Its 297 member organizations, present in 97 countries, serve as its eyes, ears and supporting hands that work alongside OMCT’s International Secretariat in Geneva to report and follow up on cases of abuse and torture.OMCT is the only organization that provides legal, medical, social and other forms of assistance to individuals at risk or victims of torture; it also helps protect human rights defenders, women who have faced or are at risk of facing violence, and vulnerable children. OMCT mounts “urgent campaigns” and issues appeals every day to government authorities around the globe in response to reported cases of torture. Member organizations – all listed on the OMCT website – gain special access to information on U.N. human rights bodies.
These are only some of the many organizations and networks with a strong human rights focus. Others are doing equally important and unique work to help individuals around the globe protect and uphold human rights. Please let us know if we forgot to list any institution focusing squarely on human rights work.
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Fatima Tlisova is an investigative journalist, researcher and expert on the North Caucasus region of Russia. She has written extensively on Circassian nationalism, the role of Islam in regional affairs, human rights abuses during the military operations in the North Caucasus, torture, disappearances and corruption. She was Editor in Chief of the Regnum News Agency, worked as a special correspondent of Novaya Gazeta, and reported for RFE/RL and for the Associated Press.
Dele Olojede is the publisher of NEXT, NextOnSunday and 234NEXT.com, which provide news and informed opinion primarily for a Nigerian audience to further the common good. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a former foreign editor at New York Newsday, he is chairman of the Global Network Initiative International Advisory Council and a member of the governing board of the Aspen Institute's Africa Leadership Initiative.
Ethan Zuckerman served a fellow of the Berkman Center from 2003 through 2009. Since 2009, he's been a senior researcher at the center, working on projects that focus on the impact of technology and media on the developing world and on quantitative analysis of media. With Hal Roberts, he is working on comparative studies of tools for censorship circumvention, techniques for blocking-resistant publishing for human rights sites and on the Media Cloud framework for quantitative study of digital media.
Colin M. Maclay is the Managing Director of the Berkman Center, where he is privileged to work in diverse capacities with its faculty, staff, fellows and extended community to realize its ambitious goals. His broad aim is to effectively and appropriately integrate information and communication technologies (ICTs) with social and economic development, focusing on the changes Internet technologies foster in society, policy and institutions.
Ivan Sigal is the Executive Director of Global Voices (
Jon Sawyer is founding director of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-profit organization that funds independent reporting with the intent of raising the standard of media coverage and engaging the broadest possible public in global affairs. In its first five years the Center has funded nearly 200 international reporting projects, partnering with major newspapers, magazines, broadcast and online outlets as well as universities and high schools across the country. Jon was previously the Washington bureau chief for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for which he reported from five dozen countries. He was selected three years in a row for the National Press Club's award for best foreign reporting.