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Research Guides

Introduction

This selection of human rights sites represents a wide range of organizations working for the protection of human rights and peace. Resources include several collections of fulltext primary documents, governmental agencies and nongovernmental organizations working in the field of human rights, and a highly selective list of web sites working for a particular constituency, a specific geographic area, or a well defined issue within the human rights arena.

Web Sites: Basic Human Rights Documents

  • The Fourth World Documentation Project
    Begun by the Center for World Indigenous Studies, the Fourth World Documentation Project is an effort to convert to electronic format all significant texts concerning the rights of indigenous peoples all around the world. A keyword searchable index is available to search documents relating to indigenous rights in Africa, North, Central and South American documents, Melanesian, Polynesian and Micronesian documents, treaties, etc.

     

  • The Human Rights Education and Research Network (HRERN)
    This University of Washington three campus Network coordinates, integrates and developes human rights teaching, research and service of University faculty, students, and outside communities. The site provides links to human rights agencies, bibliographic resources, and many other research sources.

     

  • Universal Declaration of Human Rights
    Text of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

     

  • University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
    This site holds over 90 of the most important international human rights treaties, comments, views and decisions.

Web Sites: Government Organizations

  • United Nations Homepage
    The gateway to the wealth of information from the United Nations. Includes links to other UN sites (many contain information relating to human rights), latest news, documents, highlights of events, proceedings, and history of the organization.
  • United Nations Scholars' Workstation at Yale University
    Here is a map to the complexities of the United Nations. Organized from a researcher's perspective, UN Scholars' Workstation provides access to primary sources and secondary sources as they relate to UN activity and publishing.

Web Sites: Nongovernmental Groups

  • American Civil Liberties Union Freedom Network
    One of the most active---and often controversial---organizations, the ACLU is a major player in issues of human and civil rights in the U.S.

     

  • Amnesty International Online
    Contains Amnesty International Country Reports, news releases, world-wide appeals, external document summaries, and information on recent Amnesty International publications.

     

  • Human Rights Internet
    This web site brings together publications of the ngo Human Rights Internet (HRI), research guides and guidance, searchable archives of "Human Rights Tribune," and other important resources. Founded in 1976, HRI is a world leader in the exchange of documentation, and knits together over 5,000 human rights organizations around the world, facilitating intercommunication among these groups.

     

  • Human Rights Watch
    Founded in 1978, Human Rights Watch is one of the most highly regarded organizations within the human rights movement. It is a nongovernmental group, supported by private donations and foundation grants. The web site gives a history of the organization, email contacts, etc.

     

  • Institute for Global Communications
    Home of the IGC Networks: PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet, LaborNet, and WomensNet. These networks aim to serve individuals and organizations working toward peace, environmental protection, human rights, social and economic justice, sustainable and equitable development, health, and non-violent conflict resolution.

     

  • International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
    This site tracks human disasters, and includes a weekly news service, as well as special reports, news releases from the Federation, etc.

     

  • Links to Human Rights and Amnesty International Sites
    Maintained by Derechos (which is not actually a group yet), this site is an unusually well organized collection of links to activist groups, news, and documents.

     

  • OneWorld Online
    This site is actually an information bridge between nongovernmental organizations and government agencies. Claiming to be "the world's biggest and best collection of multimedia material---that's text, graphics, audio and video---on development, the environment and human rights on the Web," One World Online is a partnership of many development agencies and charities. It covers news, reports and stories of justice and injustice around the world, and projects currently in place to improve human and civil rights for all.

     

  • Peace Brigade International
    Peace Brigade International is an international organization offering unarmed protective accompaniment to human rights activists, refugees and communities threatened with violence. This site offers information on PBI's current special projects in Balkans, Chiapas, Colombia, Guatemala, Haiti, North America and Sri Lanka, and is working on joint projects in Chiapas and the Balkans.

Web Sites: Specialized

  • American Anti-Slavery Group
    This group concentrates on publicizing the plights of various ethnic groups around the world living in bondage.

     

  • American Kurdish Information Network
    This site is maintained by a non-profit organization which takes as its mission the task to provide current information on the conditions of the Kurdish people, to solicit the support of human rights organizations on behalf of the Kurds, to gain the interest of the U.S. Congress, to publish documents and provide information---including cultural, historical and current---to increase understanding and advance the cause of a secure future for these people.

     

  • Female Genital Mutilation Resources
    This site focuses on the practice of female genital mutilation, particularly in African cultures. This practice has recently gained high visibility and some legal standing as a violation of human rights.

     

  • Free Tibet Campaign
    The struggle of the Tibetan people against China is one of the better known international political situations in this area. This site contains links to a number of related pages, including information on how to become active in this fight.

     

  • International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
    Official UN site for the tribunal includes Latest Documents andNews, Basic Legal Documents, Press Releases and Press Statements,Tribunal Cases and more.

     

  • Index on Censorship
    This bi-monthly magazine for free speech reports on censorship activities around the world.

     

  • Mario's Cyberspace Station
    This site is maintained by freelance journalist Mario Profaca who works out of Zagreb, Croatia. For information concerning war crimes tribunal events, current news from the Balkans, and many links related to the situation in the former Yugoslavia (such as the U.S. Defense Department's official Pentagon BosniaLINK), use this site.

     

  • Nigeria Human Rights
    This page brings together a number of sources--primarily Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch material--concerned specifically with the situation in Nigeria. It includes a link to "Eye on Nigeria," a daily general news update produced by Afrinet.

     

  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission Official Home Page
    This site includes press releases from the Commission, transcripts, amnesty decisions and statistics, background notes, links to other South African sides, and much more.

     

  • Women's Human Rights Sites
    Created by the University of Toronto Bora Laskin Law Library, this site inventories a large number of substantive web sites dedicated to the legal aspects of women and human rights. Beginning with a general site, it then subdivides into more specialized areas, such as women refugees, violence against women and women and the environment.

Electronic Journals, Discussion Groups, Directories, etc.

  • AIMEMBERS-L The unofficial mailing list for Amnesty International members all over the world, AIMEMBERS-L invites all AI members and others to join. To subscribe to the list, send a message to aimembers-l-request@lists1.best.com saying subsingle to receive individual messages or subscribe to receive the digest. The address for sending email to the list is aimembers-l@lists1.best.com

     

  • Idealist
    An interactive web directory of volunteer opportunities with more than 90,000 different nonprofit organizations.

     

  • Ko'aga Rone'eta
    Ko'aga Rone'eta---Now We Will Speak---is an electronic journal collecting analytical works on human rights and humanitarian law, produced by human rights organizations, professionals, academics, students and activists.

     

  • Newslink
    Newslink is one of several directories to newspapers on the web. It provides a constantly updated list of newspaper homepage links, searchable by geographic location, title, etc. News coverage of specific human rights issues currently appearing in the papers of the country involved may be accessible here.