"From Used to Abused" - a film by Lucia Grenna and Gil Rossellini http://www.rosselliniweb.com/used_abused.html The subject of this 2002 documentary is the people that have no choice or opportunity - the young women of Albania. In the era of globalization, international law and human rights issues have to be understood and taken seriously by all nation states. While respecting tradition, cultures must adapt to give security and opportunity to all. The development objective of the proposed Italian Consultant Trust Fund activity is to raise awareness in both Albanian and Italian audiences about why woman put themselves at risk undertaking illegal immigration to Italy and what can be done to redress the current situation. For many unsuspecting women, it's about a dream becoming a nightmare, the promise of a good life leading to abuse and degradation. For the nation, it's a state of affairs that cannot be sustained if the region is to achieve stability and economic well being. Contact Information: Rossellini & Associates Via Sistina 23 Roma, Italia Telephone: +39 06 42821416   Fax: +39 06 4203838 Email: info@rosselliniweb.com Formalization of Property Rights in Eradicating Poverty http://odin.dep.no/ud/norsk/aktuelt/taler/statsraad_b/032171-090054/index-dok000-b-n-a.html A discussion with Professor Hernando de Soto, the leading world authority on fighting poverty through property law. Human Rights and Reconstruction in Afghanistan, May 2002 http://www.cesr.org/Emergency%20Response/Afghanistan%20Reportfull.pdf http://www.cesr.org/Default.htm Established in 1993, the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) is one of the first organizations to challenge economic injustice as a violation of international human rights law. Through its projects abroad and in the United States, CESR has developed an effective strategy that combines research, advocacy, collaboration, and education. CESR believes that economic and social rights -- legally binding on all nations -- can provide a universally accepted framework for strengthening social justice activism. In May 2002, CESR released its comprehensive human rights report on Afghanistan, "Human Rights and Reconstruction in Afghanistan." It is the first study to survey Afghans opinion on key human rights issues facing the country. Notable Feature(s): International and U.S. programs; useful collection of related links. Contact Information: Center for Economic and Social Rights 162 Montague St., 2nd Floor Brooklyn, NY   11201 USA Telephone: 718.237.9145   Fax: 718.237.9147 Email: rights@cesr.org International Responses to Drug Abuse among Young People: Assessing the Integration of Human Rights Obligations - by Allison Smith Estelle http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/FXBC_WP9--Estelle.pdf NEKI's mission: protect the Gypsies of Hungary - by David Bornstein http://www.civnet.org/journal/issue10/rpdborn.htm Bornstein presents here a fascinating portrait of Imre Furmann, the founder of NEKI, Hungary's leading legal defense organization for Roma. Seeing is Believing - by Dana Hughes http://www.fordfound.org/publications/ff_report/view_ff_report_detail.cfm?report_index=377 http://www.witness.org/ This Ford Foundation report on the nonprofit group Witness tells about the midmorning sun beating down and the humidity trapping the fumes and exhaust from buses and cars as a group of young Salvadorans set up cameras among the people and pigeons in a public park. As they work, they attract a lot of attention from bystanders, including the police, who don't stop them, but continue to watch with suspicious eyes. Learning how to film that suspicion is the reason the group is there. They are setting up their cameras under the leadership of Sam Gregory, the program coordinator for a group called WITNESS that is providing film training for Entre Amigos ("Between Friends"), an organization of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people in El Salvador. The group plans to document the discrimination and abuse its members suffer from authorities as part of a campaign for reforms. Contact Information: WITNESS 353 Broadway New York, NY   10013 USA Telephone: 212.274.1664   Fax: 212.274.1262 Email: witness@witness.org American Gulag - by Jerome G. Miller, YES! Magazine February 6, 2001 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10425 The figures are startling. In the last year of the Carter administration (1979), our nation's federal prisons held about 20,000 inmates. By contrast, as the Clinton administration draws to a close we will have 135,000 inmates in federal prisons; projecting an annual growth of 10 percent the number will reach a quarter million in five years. In 1979, there were 268,000 inmates in the prisons of all 50 states. Today, they hold almost 1.3 million. In 1979, there were 150,000 in local jails and lockups. Today, local jail facilities hold nearly 700,000. This year, we will exceed 2 million inmates in our prisons and jails. This article reports on the dynamics and politics that have created this situation. Broken People, Broken Promises: Dalits face a new threat from India's Hindu nationalists. - by Jehangir Pocha, a native of Bombay, and an international journalist based in Cambridge, Massachusetts http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/inthesetimesbrokenpeople.cfm Even as many Dalits and tribals struggle for access to the full legal human rights granted to them in 1950, they face a new and insidious threat from India's Hindu nationalists—a threat that could subvert their fledgling political movement, unleash new waves of violence, and trap them once again onto the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy. Commentary: More rights, less destruction? - by Jonathan Lash, president of World Resources Institute http://jlash.wri.org/letters.cfm?ContentID=883 In this article Lash presents the case that environmental and human rights abuses are often linked and asks whether ensuring individual rights will work as an effective antidote to environmental destruction. Will the environment gain from increasing individual access to information, opportunities to participate, and guaranteeing the right of judicial redress? ... The vindication of human rights deserves more attention than it ordinarily gets from environmentalists. Democratic participation and individual rights offer a great lever for change. They are a weapon against corruption and a catalyst to stir action by governments immobilized by complex global problems. Contact Information: Email: features@wri.org Drawing a Line, However Thin - by David Fromkin http://www.changemakers.net/library/nytimes042201.cfm In this New York Times review, David Fromkin looks at A World Made New, Mary Ann Glendon's 2001 book about Eleanor Rossevelt's role in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Anybody concerned with the question of human rights in today's world will need to read it and refer to it. The story that it tells begins in the aftermath of the Second World War, when diverse pressures were brought to bear from Latin America, from smaller countries and from humanitarian nongovernmental organizations for some mention of human rights to be made in the United Nations Charter. The mention was made, but no definition of human rights was supplied; so, under United Nations sponsorship, a committee was established to deal with the matter. In January 1947 the committee convened, with Eleanor Roosevelt, widow of the late president, as its chairwoman." Notable Feature(s): An interview with Harvard law professor Glendon about her book on the background and framing of the UN's Universal Declaration; another review of A World Made New from The Washington Post, May 3, 2001; an extensive article from The New Republic, February 25, 2002, by Cass R. Sustein. Food: a fundamental human right http://www.fao.org/Focus/E/rightfood/right1.htm Since its inception, the United Nations has identified access to adequate food as both an individual right and a collective responsibility. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed that "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food…". Nearly 20 years later, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) developed these concepts more fully, stressing "the right of everyone to … adequate food" and specifying "the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger". The civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration are considered interdependent, interrelated, indivisible and equally important. To be able to enjoy the right to food fully, people need access to health care and education, respect for their cultural values, the right to own property and the right to organize themselves economically and politically. Notable Feature(s): Right to Food Web site; Ethics in Food and Agriculture. From the Rule of Man To the Rule of Law - by June Shih http://www.fordfound.org/publications/ff_report/view_ff_report_detail.cfm?report_index=431&print_version=1 Modeled after clinic programs that are a staple in U.S. law schools, legal clinics in China are giving students a chance to apply their classroom lessons in practice while providing much-needed legal aid for the poor. Through the clinics, students handle a full range of cases—from simple divorces and landlord-tenant disputes to character defamation and medical malpractice. This Summer 2003 Ford Foundation Report article profiles the infrastructure for law and social justice emerging throughout China. Notable Feature(s): Another article on the growth of public-interest law in China: Guanxi In Guangzhou: A Chinese client cuts his own deal - By Katherine A. Mason for legalaffairs , the magazine at the intersection of law and life. Contact Information: Email: news@fordfound.org Girl Power - by David S. Landes and Richard A. Landes http://www.thenewrepublic.com/100801/landes100801.html This September 2001 article in The New Republic addresses the underlying inequality of women in contemporary fundamentalist Islamic communities and the challenge and prospects of changing the social conditions that permit such repression. Health & Human Rights: An International Journal http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/journal.htm http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/fxbcenter/index.htm The journal is an initiative of The François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, the first academic center to focus exclusively on health and human rights, combines the academic strengths of research and teaching with a strong commitment to service and advocacy. The Center was founded at the Harvard School of Public Health in 1993 through a gift from the Association François-Xavier Bagnoud. In 1996 it moved from its original location in Cambridge to the newly constructed François-Xavier Bagnoud Building at HSPH in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston. Notable Feature(s): Vol.5, No.1, 2000 with abstracts available online, including articles on the right to health care in South Africa, women's mental health, protecting the rights of sex workers; Working Papers Series on a variety of issues in health and human rights. Contact Information: François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human R Harvard School of Public Health 651 Huntington Avenue, 7th floor Boston, MA   02115 USA Telephone: 617.432.0656   Fax: 617.432.4310 Email: fxbcenter@igc.org Human rights and environmental protection: who should build the bridge? by Jonathan Easton http://www.iue.it/WGES/Iss13/art2.html#Jon The second half of the twentieth century has witnessed two major changes in legal theory and legal practice. First, human rights and later, the environment were institutionalised as fundamental social values. Nevertheless, for decades the environmental and the human rights movements have run on separate tracks. Environmentalists focused on protecting land, air and water; human rights advocates concentrated on securing rights for people. Today a bridge connecting the two is nearing completion. As with any large engineering project, there will be teething troubles and improvements and modifications will have to be made, but what has been accepted is that there is an inevitable convergence between human rights and the protection of the environment. It is contended that there is an inevitable convergence between human rights and the protection of the environment. Humans do not live in a hermetically sealed society separated from nature, and so the deterioration of the environment will necessarily have an impact on them and their rights. Contact Information: Jonathan Easton, EUI Researcher in Law Email: easton@datacomm.iue.it Human Rights are Universal by Monique Chemillier-Gendreau http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/01/08rights.html According to the author in this 1999 piece for Le Monde diplomatique, "While the fate of General Augusto Pinochet still hangs in the balance, the establishment of an International Criminal Court in Rome in July and the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa mark a new departure. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there is clearly a need for an international response to problems of justice and law. The principle of state sovereignty must no longer be invoked to allow criminals to go unpunished." Contact Information: Le Monde Diplomatique 21 bis, rue Claude-Bernard Paris   75005 France Telephone: +33 1 42 17 29 16   Fax: +33 1 42 17 21 00 Email: dispatch@Monde-diplomatique.fr Human Rights Brief http://www.wcl.american.edu/pub/humright/brief/ The Human Rights Brief is a publication of the Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at the Washington College of Law. It reports about developments in international human rights and humanitarian law, as well as provides concise legal analysis of current human rights issues. The Brief staff maintains a strong commitment to supporting human rights practitioners and strengthening the community of human rights advocates around the world. Many of its readers, especially those overseas, are dedicated human rights activists who have limited resources and work without substantial public support. For these readers, the Human Rights Brief is a key reference for human rights information, highlighting current events and reporting recent developments in the law. Notable Feature(s): Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. Contact Information: The Human Rights Brief The Washington College of Law Suite 311 4801 Massachusetts Ave., NW Washington, DC   20016 USA Telephone: 202.274.4027   Email: hrbrief@wcl.american.edu Human Rights Watch - World Report 2003 http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/ This report is Human Rights Watch's thirteenth annual review of human rights practices around the globe. It addresses developments in fifty-eight countries, covering the period from November 2001 through November 2002. Most chapters examine significant human rights developments in a particular country; the response of global actors, such as the European Union, Japan, the United States, the United Nations, and various regional and international organizations and institutions; and the freedom of local human rights defenders to conduct their work. As in past years, this report does not include a chapter on every country where Human Rights Watch works, nor does it discuss every issue of importance. The failure to include a particular country or issue often reflects no more than staffing limitations and should not be taken as commentary on the significance of the problem. There are many serious human rights violations that Human Rights Watch simply lacks the capacity to address. Unlike previous World Reports, this year's does not have separate chapters addressing Human Rights Watch's thematic work. Instead, this year's report incorporates such material directly into the report's regional overviews, country chapters, and a new chapter on "Global Issues." The change was made in the interests of streamlining the volume and mainstreaming developments in thematic areas into our country descriptions and analyses. The Human Rights Watch website can be consulted for more detailed treatment of our work on children's rights, women's rights, arms, academic freedom, business and human rights, HIV/AIDS and human rights, international justice, refugees and displaced, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights, and for information on our international film festival. Notable Feature(s): Complete Table of Contents. Contact Information: Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue 34th Floor New York, NY   10118-3299 USA Telephone: 212.290.4700   Fax: 212.736.1300 Email: hrwnyc@hrw.org Integrating human rights with sustainable human development - a UNDP policy document - 1998 Contact Information: United Nations Development Programme One United Nations Plaza New York, NY   10017 USA Landmark Victory for Indians in International Human Rights Case Against Nicaragua http://www.indianlaw.org/iachr_decision.htm http://www.indianlaw.org/default.htm On Monday, September 17, 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights released its decision declaring that Nicaragua violated the human rights of the Awas Tingni Community and ordered the government to recognize and protect the community's legal rights to its traditional lands, natural resources, and environment. Notable Feature(s): Detailed summary of the case; the Indian Law Resource Center,providing legal advocacy for the protection of indigenous peoples' human rights, cultures, and traditional lands so that Indian tribes and nations may flourish for generations to come. Contact Information: Armstrong Wiggins, Indian Law Resource Center Telephone: 202.547.2800   Louder than Words: Lawyers, Communities and the Struggle for Peace - by Penda Hair http://www.rockfound.org/display.asp?Collection=3&context=1&DocID=430 Louder Than Words: Lawyers, Communities and the Struggle for Justice is the result of a three-year assessment of the state of civil rights litigation in the United States in the aftermath of federal civil rights laws and protections. The Rockefeller Foundation report suggests that despite such protections, structural barriers to opportunities, resources and policymaking—particularly for minorities—remain embedded in political and economic systems. The 166-page report highlights innovative partnerships between civil rights lawyers and communities to address problems of inequality and exclusion. Formerly enslaved Thai garment workers in El Monte, CA, establish a cooperative business after obtaining their freedom from a garment factory surrounded by barbed wire. As legislative redistricting returns to the nation, a community group in Mississippi works to engage minority voters in five states. Three years after affirmative action is eliminated in Texas' college admissions, the number of minority students attending one of the state's premier universities rebounds. These stories—along with others in Boston, Greensboro and Los Angeles—are the subject of the report. Notable Feature(s): Entire report available online. M*A*S*H Star Seeks End to Death Penalty by Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10083 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10001 Actor Mike Farrell -- most famous for his role as "B.J. Hunnicutt" in the American TV series M*A*S*H -- has been a lifelong advocate of prisoners' rights and judicial reform. Farrell is also one of the leading and most articulate opponents of capital punishment. Notable Feature(s): The AlterNet site provides a strong voice for independent news and information; it is an online magazine, information source and community that combines quality journalism, public-interest content, interactivity, passionate advocacy and links to useful resources; AlterNet.org is an alternative to the corporate conglomerates that dominate the media marketplace. Contact Information: Don Hazen, Executive Editor AlterNet.org 77 Federal Street San Francisco, CA   94107 USA Telephone: 415/284-1420   Fax: 415/284-1414 Email: info@alternet.org Making the Mountain Move: An Activist's Guide to How International Human Rights Mechanisms Can Work for You http://www.iglhrc.org/news/factsheets/unguide.html http://www.iglhrc.org/ This is a guide to accessing and utilizing the international systems that have been created to defend human rights. Contact Information: Scott Long, Director of Programs and Research International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission 1360 Mission Street, Suite 200 San Francisco, CA   94103 USA Telephone: 415.255.8680   Fax: 415.255.8662 Email: scott@iglhrc.org iglhrc@iglhrc.org MDRI: Pioneering Strategies for International Enforcement of Mental Disability Rights - by Max Lapertosa and Eric Rosenthal http://www.wcl.american.edu/pub/humright/brief/v3i1/mdri31.htm After decades of fighting the abuses of dictators, human rights activists are beginning to recognize that people with mental disabilities are vulnerable to abuse in every society. Message from the Village - Anuradha Vittachi, Kanchana Abhayapala Memorial Lecture, Sri Lanka, December 2002 http://www.oneworld.net/article/view/51114/1/?PrintableVersion=enabled http://www.oneworld.net/ An important address on the many ways in which media can serve to improve and protect human rights for all. There are so many ways now to support the people who live at the sharp end of most of these tragedies. We can use ICDs (short for devices for Information and Communication for Development) to help them secure their human rights by helping them to tell their own stories far and wide. And we must do it – because it is these, the most vulnerable people in the world, who have the world's most important stories to tell. They need to tell their stories for their sake, because it is only after their truths are told, and HEARD, that their healing can begin. And also for OUR sake. In an article about Kanchana Abhayapala in the Sunday Island, Jehan Perera said: 'Perhaps in order to become different we need to be personally affected in a manner that sears the soul.' That, really, is the ultimate purpose of our media technology. Not to transmit facts, but for us - the privileged - who have our hands on the levers of power and yet who live far away from the worst of the suffering, to be 'seared in our souls'. Then and only then will we finally feel that we are all equal, all members of one connected humankind. Contact Information: Email: justice@oneworld.net Rebuilding From Within - by Larry Thompson http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/washpost012802.cfm http://www.refintl.org/cgi-bin/ri/index In this article from The Washington Post, Thompson presents the case for locally driven solutions to the development needs in Afghanistan. Afghan leaders of NGOs fear they will be overwhelmed by the international presence in Afghanistan and that their best staff will be lured away by the high salaries paid by foreigners. They are regarded by the United Nations, aid agencies and international NGOs as contractors rather than full partners. When a foreign NGO arrives in town, they say, the U.N. agencies almost always give it a position of leadership over the Afghan NGOs. But one Afghan aid worker said, "There are 10 Afghan NGOs capable of implementing million-dollar aid programs as well as any foreign NGO." This is a claim that should be tested. Contact Information: Refugees International 1705 N Street, NW Washington, DC   20036 USA Telephone: 202.828.0110   Fax: 202.828.0819 Email: ri@refintl.org Stage Might: Brazil's Landless Find Strength in Art - by Malcolm McNee http://www.americas.org/News/Features/200205_Landless_Art/20020501_index.htm http://www.mstbrazil.org/ Five theatrical works performed by Brazil's Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) were featured at the annual World Social Forum in February 2002. The pieces represent a milestone for the group, best known for coordinating occupations of unused farmland by poor people. Showing a global audience a new front in the world's most successful land-reform struggle, the MST is reclaiming the right to creative self-representation. Using theater, music, video and other art forms, the landless are confronting a corporate media industry that has portrayed their reform movement as violent and rendered their diverse cultures invisible. “One of our concerns, obviously, is with the media's portrayal of the movement as disorderly, as violent,” says Mineirinho, who works out of the MST's Teodoro Sampaio office. “So exploring and amplifying the culture and arts of the landless communities can open a different sort of dialogue with Brazilian society, helping it to better understand who we are and where we came from. In addition, it's important for the young people in our communities to learn their local culture, for it to resonate with their sense of identity, pride and dreams. If only urban culture is given value, then young people naturally imagine their future as inevitably involving a move to the city, exacerbating the massive problems of urbanization the country already faces.” To address these concerns, Mineirinho helped found the MST Culture Collective, whose first event was a 1996 gathering of landless musicians in Brasília, the nation's capital, for song-writing and recording workshops. Since then, the collective has supported production and circulation of music and poetry within and between landless communities around the country. Contact Information: Landless Workers Movement (MST) c/o Global Exchange 2017 Mission Street #303 San Francisco, CA   94110 USA Email: semterra@mst.org.br The economist versus the terrorist: Hernando de Soto believes that capitalism can defeat terrorism - http://www.economist.com/people/PrinterFriendly.cfm?Story_ID=1559905 This January 2003 Economist article presents the ideas of Hernando de Soto. Mr de Soto is not one of those economists who thinks that the key to capitalism's success is to protect existing, legally established property rights, come what may. On the contrary, he argues that capitalism will thrive, and overcome threats such as terrorism, only if legal systems change so that most of the people feel that the law is on their side. Creating this sense of inclusion requires many things, including marketing the idea aggressively to the poor. But one of the best symbols of change is a mass programme of giving full legal protection to the de facto property rights that are observed informally by the (typically poor) people now living beyond the formal law. According to Mr de Soto's research, based on interaction with extra-legal communities in several countries, such informal property rights cover assets—notably, land and housing—worth many billions of dollars. Informal systems of property rights usually make such assets “dead capital”, meaning that it is hard to use them as collateral for a loan, which might be used to start a business, for example. Bringing these rights into the formal legal system will unleash this capital and spur growth, says Mr de Soto: an efficient, inclusive legal system preceded rapid development in every rich country. Mr de Soto is charismatic and sells his ideas energetically. But he is no mere talker. Besides Peru and El Salvador, which made reforms some years ago based on his ideas, Mr de Soto and his think-tank, Institute for Liberty and Democracy, have recently been working with the governments of Mexico, Egypt, the Philippines, Honduras and Haiti—which is expected to be the first of these countries to introduce new legislation in April 2003. Truth Commissions Take On a Local Flavor - by Tina Rosenberg http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/2ndnyt022601.cfm This February 2001 New York Times article demonstrates how truth commissions can aid nations in understanding and remaking a damaged political culture. They can help victims to heal, create a consensus for democratic reforms and uncover evidence that can be used to prosecute the guilty. But some countries that establish commissions will not see these benefits, because the new democratic governments lack the desire or clout to sustain their work or have designed truth commissions unsuitable to their societies. Truth commissions have recently begun work in Nigeria and Panama, and are about to start in Sierra Leone and East Timor. Indonesia and Peru are completing the rules for new ones and commissions are being seriously discussed in Mexico, Bosnia, Serbia, Ghana, Burundi and elsewhere. Canada may establish a truth commission to examine aspects of how it treated native peoples. U.S. Courts Become Arbiters of Global Rights and Wrongs - by William Glaberson http://www.changemakers.net/library/temp/nyt062101.cfm This June 21, 2001 NY Times article traces the growing scope of international human rights litigation in U.S. courts since the early 1980s. A Collection of Editorials on Human Rights http://www.ibb.gov/editorials/rights.htm A Selection of Grant-Making Organizations Supporting Human Rights A review of grants made by various foundations is often a useful way to learn about new approaches and grassroots programs in human rights. The Rockefeller Foundation The Ford Foundation Soros Foundations Network The National Endowment for Democracy The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation Carnegie Corporation of New York Accessible Justice Bulletin http://www.penalreform.org/english/nlaccess2_1.htm ALERTANET - Portal on Law & Society http://alertanet.org/ ALERTANET is a portal on law and society, multiculturalism, indigenous peoples, legal pluralism, justice, penal control, alternative dispute resolution, human rights, woman and gender, democracy, critical theories of law and state, and Latin American issues. It seeks To promote a Latin American virtual (and real) network on Law & Society; To facilitate the exchange of ideas between members of different networks, activists & scholars; To support the efforts for social change, democracy, justice, pluralism, human rights, and peace in the region. Notable Feature(s): All materials in Spanish and English. Contact Information: Email: editora@alertanet.org alertanet@alertanet.org Alternate Dispute Resolution http://www.hg.org/adr.html http://www.hg.org/index.html Alternative dispute resolution has greatly expanded over the last several years to include many areas in addition to the traditional commercial dispute; mediation has become an important first step in the process. Heiros Gamos covers all current areas of ADR at this site. Notable Feature(s): Useful introduction to ADR by Gary H. Barnes; law news from around the world; background information and updates on virtually all governments and laws of the world by country, by region, by states in the U.S.A. Contact Information: Email: On-line form: http://www.hierosgamos.org/hg/hg_emails.asp Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Links, Reports and Practical Guides http://www.changemakers.net/library/fieldlink.cfm?field=Alternative+Dispute+Resolution A large directory of practical resources for implementing ADR reforms around the world. Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop Report http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/legal/ADR%20Workshop.pdf Ambedkar http://www.ambedkar.org http://www.goethals.org/rdiden.htm A comprehensive site with the latest news, legal developments, and policy statements on behalf of the pro Dalit movement in India and elsewhere, based on the teaching and human rights understanding of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is believed to have coined the term "Dalit" to apply to the "Untouchables" or casteless people. Contact Information: Email: dalits@ambedkar.org Amnesty International (AI) http://www.amnesty.org/ http://web.amnesty.org/web/links.nsf Amnesty International (AI) is a worldwide campaigning movement that works to promote all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards. In particular, Amnesty International campaigns to free all prisoners of conscience; ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners; abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners; end political killings and "disappearances"; and oppose human rights abuses by opposition groups. Amnesty International has around a million members and supporters in 162 countries and territories. Activities range from public demonstrations to letter-writing, from human rights education to fundraising concerts, from individual appeals on a particular case to global campaigns on a particular issue. Notable Feature(s): AI annual reports; country-specific human rights reports; the latest news and information on AI campaigns; links to related organizations; contact information for AI offices around the world; Contact Information: Amnesty International 99-119 Rosebery Avenue London   EC1R 4RE UK Telephone: +44 20 7814 6200   Fax: +44 20 7833 1510 Email: info@amnesty.org.uk admin-us@aiusa.org Amnesty International Report: Proposed Standards for National Human Rights Commission in Bangladesh http://web.amnesty.org/aidoc/aidoc_pdf.nsf/index/ASA130031997ENGLISH/$File/ASA1300397.pdf Anti-Slavery International http://www.antislavery.org/index.htm Anti-Slavery International, founded in 1839, is the world's oldest international human rights organisation and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and related abuses. The organisation works at local, national and international levels to eliminate the system of slavery around the world by: Urging governments of countries with slavery to develop and implement measures to end it; Lobbying governments and intergovernmental agencies to make slavery a priority issue; Supporting research to assess the scale of slavery in order to identify measures to end it; Working with local organisations to raise public awareness of slavery; Educating the public about the realities of slavery and campaigning for its end. Anti-Slavery International's work is divided among three teams: Programme, Communication and Information, enabling it to work effectively towards achieving its goal of a slave-free world. Notable Feature(s): Current reports and news of slavery around the world; resources; campaigns; and documentary photographs. Contact Information: Antislavery International Thomas Clarkson House The Stableyard Broomgrove Road London SW9 9TL UK Telephone: +44 (0)20 7501 8920   Fax: +44 (0)20 7738 4110 Email: info@antislavery.org Australian and United States Law Of Aboriginal Land Rights: A Comparative Perspective - by A. Dan Tarlock http://www.vje.org/articles/tarlock.html This article compares and contrasts Aboriginal claims to the occupation and use of land throughout the Australia with United States Indian law. This is a rapidly evolving area of aboriginal jurisprudence of the High Court of the Commonwealth of Australia. Australian Aborigines had no pre-settlement land titles until the Labor government enacted land title legislation in the 1970s. This legislation, and the profound value shift that it represented, ultimately led to the Commonwealth High Court's Mabo decision which reversed two hundred years of precedent and recognized the existence of native land titles in Australia. Why should United States environmental and natural resources lawyers be interested in the Australian High Court's aboriginal jurisprudence other than for academic reasons? The fundamental idea of United States Indian jurisprudence, that the federal government should treat aboriginal peoples as quasi-sovereign entities, has had a powerful influence on countries such as Australia and South Africa, which came to this idea late in the twentieth century. As a matter of legal process, modern Australian aboriginal jurisprudence is based on the United States's Supreme Court Indian jurisprudence. Therefore, the Australian cases are an interesting example of the convergence of different legal systems resulting from similar ideas taking root in areas of the world that face similar problems. This article offers two reasons why the Australian experience is relevant to both Indian and environmental law in the United States. The first is a practical one. For example, United States and multi-national mineral companies operate in Australia, and the country's rich mineral resources often sit beneath lands where potential aboriginal usufructuary or possessory claims exist. Also, lawyers must understand the basis of these claims to be able to formulate the pro-active accommodation plans that are being negotiated in Australia. The second reason is that American Indian law can be enriched by the Australian High Court's aboriginal rights jurisprudence. Background on Penal Reform – South Asia http://www.penalreform.org/english/region_south.htm Bangladesh: Women Mediators Training Project http://www.penalreform.org/english/nlaccess2_2.htm Burmaissues.org http://www.burmaissues.org/En/Home.php Burma Issues, a project of the Peace Way Foundation, was established in Thailand in 1990 to focus on the Burmese people's suffering and dissatisfaction under Burma's present military regime. Since 2002, the parent organization has operated as a nonprofit devoted to its nonpartisan vision of nonviolent resistance and of popular participation in Burma by advocating genuine respect for international human rights standards on all sides of Burma's conflicts, and by encouraging and supporting a nonviolent grassroots movement for human rights and social justice within Burma. The aim of the organization is to participate in building up a movement of the marginalized people that is capable of carrying out the long-term struggle necessary to bring a true and lasting peace with justice to Burma. To realize these aims the organization has defined and developed its activities according to three basic categories: Grassroots organizing : Mobilizing under-represented people to develop the courage and confidence they need to express their concerns and ideas, and to participate effectively in the decision-making processes, which affect their lives. Information for action : Supporting activities inside and outside Burma by supplying and helping to develop information, especially as it relates to oppression, human rights and peace. Campaigns for peace : Advocating, publicizing and participating in international dialogue and actions concerning human rights and peace in Burma. Notable Feature(s): Publications; Multimedia; Links. Contact Information: The Peace Way Foundation 1/11 Soi Piphat 2 Convent Road, Silom Bangkok 10500 Thailand Telephone: 66 (0)2 234 6674   Fax: 66 (0)2 631 0133 Email: durham@mozart.inet.co.th Business & Human Rights: A Resource Web site http://www.business-humanrights.org/ The aim of this "online library" is to provide easy access (through links) to a wide range of materials, and to promote informed discussion of important policy issues. It is maintained by Christopher Avery, an international lawyer working independently on business/human rights issues. Notable Feature(s): A valuable and updated collection of materials not available in one place elsewhere. Contact Information: Christopher Avery Email: avery@business-humanrights.org Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs http://www.carnegiecouncil.org/index.php The Council was established by Andrew Carnegie in 1914 to work toward the ideal of world peace. Today it is the world's premier forum for research and education in ethics and international policy. It provides a home for those who explore the ethical dilemmas posed by issues such as deadly conflict, human rights violations, environmental protection, global economic disparities, and the politics of reconciliation. To talk about ethics on the individual or personal level is one thing. But how can we talk about ethics in the collective, especially in the context of international affairs? "The strong do what they will, the weak do what they must." Realism, however, does not explain everything. For instance, it cannot explain the real gains we have seen in recent years in the areas of moral restraint and the evolution of international moral norms. Today it is hard to conceive of international relations—or politics itself—without the notion of human rights somewhere near the center of our thinking. Understanding how moral imperatives such as human rights—the very real weight of conscience, principle, responsibility, and restraint—affect the struggle for power and peace among nations is the unifying theme of all the work of the Carnegie Council. The Carnegie Council is an independent, nonprofit educational institution with no formal ties to any religious group or government-affiliated organization. As a nonpartisan organization, it does not have a legislative or policy agenda. By providing a forum for many of today's most highly regarded experts, and a home for discussions of international affairs that might not otherwise take place, it has an indirect impact on policymakers shaping today's—and tomorrow's—worlds. Notable Feature(s): An extensive resource library of reports, speeches, and other useful transcripts, documents, organizations, and books; e-newsletter. Contact Information: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs Merrill House 170 East 64th Street New York, NY   10021-7478 USA Telephone: 212.838.4120   Fax: 212.752.2432 Email: info@cceia.org Carter Center http://www.cartercenter.org/ The Carter Center, in partnership with Emory University, is guided by a fundamental commitment to human rights and the alleviation of human suffering; it seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy, and improve health. Through its Conflict Resolution Program (CRP), The Carter Center marshals the experience of peacemakers to prevent and resolve armed conflicts around the globe. It is the base for the International Negotiation Network (INN), an informal network of eminent persons who can offer advice and assistance to resolve disputes. The INN is chaired by President Carter and includes world leaders, Nobel Peace laureates, former heads of state, and conflict resolution practitioners, as well as representatives of international organizations, governments, and nongovernmental organizations. The CRP has worked on projects in the Baltics, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Great Lakes region of Africa, Korea, Liberia, Sudan, and many other conflict areas worldwide. Notable Feature(s): Updates on world conflicts; global information on fighting disease and advancing health; peace and development initiatives; transparency and other election activities around the world. Contact Information: The Carter Center One Copenhill 453 Freedom Parkway Atlanta, GA   30307 USA Telephone: 404.420.5104   Fax: 404-420-5145 Email: carterweb@emory.edu Cartoonists Rights Network (CRN) http://www.cartoonnet.org/ http://cagle.slate.msn.com/crn/ The Cartoonists Rights Network champions the work of cartoonists around the world and their role in changing attitudes, exposing corruption, and ensuring free speech and the human rights of the cartoonists themselves and those they would protect from abuse, unjust incarceration, and censorship. CRN has affiliate organizations in Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Cyprus, Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, and others starting up in many more countries. CRN conducts workshops that help editorial cartoonists understand their rights under local and international free speech laws, and it networks thousands of cartoonists so they may understand that they are not alone in their daily struggles to tell the truth from the independent journalist's point of view. CRN Affiliate members are cartoonists who want to develop the economic base of their craft and strengthen the cartoonist's influence with the public. CRN Romania holds annual cartoon competitions on issues of free speech from the pens of hundreds of international cartoonists. Contact Information: Robert Russell, Director Cartoonists Rights Network , Virginia USA Email: bro@cartoonnet.org Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law http://www.wcl.american.edu/pub/humright/digest/ http://www.wcl.american.edu/pub/humright/home.html A valuable source for human rights information and documents focused on Latin America. Site provides access to the Inter-American Human Rights Database, which contains documents in English and Spanish adopted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights since its first session, celebrated in 1960. Given the increasing need to accede to the case law of this body, initial efforts have been concentrated in making the reports on individual cases available to the general public. The Database will include special country reports and thematic reports adopted by the Commission since its inception. Notable Feature(s): Resources in English and Spanish. Contact Information: Inter-American Human Rights Digest Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law Washington College of Law 4801 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. Room 314 Washington, DC   20016-8084 USA Telephone: 202.274.4283   Fax: 202.274.0783 Email: cmartin@wcl.american.edu (Ms. Claudia Martin or Mr. Diego Rodríguez-Pinz& Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) http://www.ciel.org/ With offices in Washington, DC and in Geneva, Switzerland, CIEL recognizes the growing connection between threats to the global environment and basic human rights. It seeks to identify and develop connections between international environmental law and human rights law, to integrate the theoretical and advocacy approaches of the two movements, and to promote a more just, equitable and sustainable approach to natural resource management issues, CIEL started its Human Rights and Environment (HRE) Program in 1998. The link between human rights and environmental protection has become increasingly clear in recent years. Environmental damage is often worse in countries and in areas with human rights abuses. Where human rights are weak, civil society groups are not able to raise environmental concerns effectively. Rights of association, access to justice, access to information and freedom of expression, are critical for the success of a country's environmental and human rights movements. Human rights and environmental abuses take place at different levels. Activities of private corporations are increasingly contributing to human rights violations and environmental degradation. For instance, corporations often expel local peoples from their lands, fail to implement pollution control measures, suppress local activists who question the impacts of their activities, or produce and export chemicals banned in their own country that they know will cause serious health problems in the country of import. Human rights and environmental abuses are often perpetrated in the name of development, as past experience with projects of multilateral institutions like the World Bank has demonstrated. Poor and rural peoples in developing nations are further marginalized by projects such as large dams or gas pipelines that claim to reduce poverty, but instead displace local inhabitants and exploit their natural resource base. Although rural resource users comprise the majority of the citizens of the world, their leverage in the global economy is weak. Local communities, including indigenous peoples suffer human rights and environmental abuses when national and state laws do not recognize their rights, including their rights to their land and natural resources. As the linkage between environmental and human rights concerns becomes more apparent, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate between environmental injustices and human rights abuses. Notable Feature(s): CIEL programs, publications, links, and information about a full range of environmental, legal, research, human rights, policy, and advocacy services. Contact Information: Center for International Environmental Law 1367 Connecticut Avenue, NW Suite 300 Washington, DC   20036 USA Telephone: 202.785.8700   Fax: 202.785.8701 Email: info@ciel.org Center for Sustainable Human Rights Action (CeSHRA) http://www.ceshra.org/ourwork.htm CeSHRA's mission is to promote and protect a culture of human rights observance by strengthening human rights organizations worldwide. Together with its international partners, CeSHRA believes that strong, healthy organizations are necessary for effective human rights monitoring, research, education and advocacy. Notable Feature(s): Publications, including handbooks for making the most of the media for human rights groups around the world; opportunities to contribute to the process of collecting information and resources for a manual on Evaluation for Human Rights Organizations. Contact Information: CeSHRA 122 West 27th Street 10th Floor New york, NY   10001 USA Telephone: 212.691.8020   Fax: 253.390.0781 Email: ceshra@ceshra.org Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) http://www.cvt.org/main.php The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) exists to heal the wounds of government-sponsored torture on individuals, their families and their communities, and to stop its practice. As many as 500,000 torture survivors are living in the United States. These individuals were brutalized by repressive regimes abroad because of what they believed, what they said or did, or what they represented. Many survivors, their families, and their communities suffer the lingering, debilitating effects of their horrific traumas in silence. CVT has pioneered a comprehensive assessment and care program that is unique in this country. In recent years, CVT has expanded its services to include research, training and public policy initiatives in order to develop strategies for abolishing torture worldwide. CVT has helped torture survivors from more than 60 countries heal and rebuild their lives. The Center for Victims of Torture began with a conversation between an Amnesty International volunteer at Stanford Law School, Rudy Perpich, Jr., and his father, then Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich. In the end, the governor promised his son he would use his position to act on behalf of the struggle for international human rights. The governor sought ideas from local leaders in human rights, including Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights (then known as the Minnesota Lawyers International Human Rights Committee), and David Weissbrodt, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and an expert in international human rights law. Together they presented Governor Perpich with ten ideas for action – the most ambitious being the establishment of the first treatment center in the United States for victims of torture. Governor Perpich embraced the idea and began to act. He went to Copenhagen, Denmark, to visit the first treatment center in the world, the Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims, and appointed a task force to determine whether such a center would be feasible in Minnesota. The Center for Victims of Torture was founded in May 1985 as an independent, nongovernmental organization. For the first two years, care was provided at the International Clinic of St. Paul Ramsey Medical Center. In time, staff recommended that CVT move to a more home-like, less institutional setting that would be less intimidating for clients where the design and atmosphere generate trust, conversation, listening, and healing. Notable Feature(s): Training resources, research, and other materials useful in helping victims of torture and in developing programs for such work in the United States and around the world; text of Congressional testimony urging more attention by the U.S. to global torture and its impacts on individuals, nations, and efforts to bring democracy and freedom to all cultures and communities that want them. Contact Information: Douglas A. Johnson, Executive Director Center for Victims of Torture 717 East River Road Minneapolis, MN   55455 USA Telephone: 612.436.4800   Fax: 612.436.2600 Email: cvt@cvt.org Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) http://www.cohre.org/ COHRE was established in 1992, committed to ensuring the full enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, with a particular focus on the human right to adequate housing and preventing forced evictions. COHRE has set itself a challenge: to promote and protect the right to housing for everyone, everywhere. To achieve this, COHRE has carefully developed a varied work programme, guided by international human rights law, and designed to reach as many people as possible. COHRE often works together with other organisations on many of its programmes, adding their skills and knowledge to COHRE's work. To ensure COHRE activities reach every corner of the world COHRE maintains three regional programmes: COHRE Asia & Pacific, COHRE Africa and COHRE Americas. Notable Feature(s): News and culture; excellent set of links; well established program led by recognised international experts who have held training sessions in countries throughout the world, including Brazil, Japan, Kosovo, Latvia, Malaysia, Nepal, Solomon Islands, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Switzerland and Thailand. Contact Information: Scott Leckie, Executive Director COHRE International Secretariat 83 rue de Montbrillant 1202 Geneva Switzerland Telephone: + 41 22 734 1028   Fax: + 41 22 734 1028 Email: sleckie@attglobal.net cohre@yahoo.com Children's Rights - Across the World http://boes.org/justice.html Boes.org's ambition is to provide the full text of The Convention on the Rights of the Child, in a large number of languages, to other seriously engaged organizations - to universities, high schools and colleges - all over the world, through mutual Internet links. Notable Feature(s): A vast number of multilingual links to the Convention; news; activities; links directory Children's Rights 2002 - Human Rights Watch World Report http://hrw.org/wr2k2/children.html Contact Information: Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY   10118-3299 USA Civilrights.org http://www.civilrights.org/ Civilrights.org is a collaboration of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. Its mission: to serve as the site of record for relevant and up-to-the minute civil rights news and information. The site is home to socially-concerned, issue-oriented original audio, video, and written programming, and it is committed to serving as the on-line nerve center not only for the struggle against discrimination in all its forms, but also to build the public understanding that it is essential for the United States to continue its journey toward social and economic justice. Notable Feature(s): Leadership Conference on Civil Rights; the LCCR Education Fund; Research Center. Contact Information: Leadership Conference on Civil Rights 1629 K Street NW 10th Floor Washington, DC   20006 USA Telephone: 202.466.3311   Co/Motion http://www.allianceforjustice.org/student/co_motion/ http://www.allianceforjustice.org/ Co/Motion is more than just a program, it is a philosophy of youth-led social change. Co/Motion believes that young people are not the leaders of tomorrow -- young people are the leaders of today. Co/Motion's role is to provide the support -- training, guidance, and networking opportunities -- young people need to be successful in their efforts to promote social change. Co/Motion is a national program that helps organizations build their capacity to foster youth leadership in the design, implementation, and evaluation of action strategies addressing community problems. Notable Feature(s): Student Advocacy; student resource links. Contact Information: Alliance for Justice 11 Dupont Circle, NW 2nd Floor Washington, DC   20036 USA Telephone: 202.822.6070   Fax: 202.822.6068 Email: alliance@afj.org Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/cedaw/index.html The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN General Assembly, is often described as an international bill of rights for women. Consisting of a preamble and 30 articles, it defines what constitutes discrimination against women and sets up an agenda for national action to end such discrimination. Notable Feature(s): Access to Division for the Advancement of Women resources, including those specifically on women's rights. Contact Information: UN Division for the Advancement of Women 2 UN Plaza, DC2-12th Floor New York, NY   10017 USA Fax: 212.963.3463 Email: daw@un.org Convention on the Rights of the Child http://www.unicef.org/crc/ Contact Information: UNICEF House 3 United Nations Plaza New York, NY   10017 USA Telephone: 212.326.7000   Fax: 212.887.7454 Email: http://www.unicef.org Corporate Violations of Human Rights: A Few Case Studies http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/feature/humanrts/cases/index.html Contact Information: CorpWatch PO Box 29344 San Francisco, CA   94129 USA Telephone: 415.561.6568   Fax: 415.561.6493 Email: corpwatch@corpwatch.org Covering Criminal Justice http://www.cjr.org/Resources/crime99/cjr-cg.pdf This 42-page resource guide presented by the Center on Crime, Communities & Culture and the Columbia Journalism Review is a vast compendium of perspective, references, and organizations that can aid journalists and others dealing with crime and crime reporting, corrections, prevention, violence as a public health issue, and many other issues. Notable Feature(s): The Center on Crime, Communities & Culture is a program of the Open Society Institute. Contact Information: Andrew Martin, Communications Center on Crime, Communities & Culture 400 West 59th Street New York, New York   10019 USA Telephone: 212.547.6940   Fax: 212.548.4666 Email: amartin@sorosny.org Cultural Survival http://www.culturalsurvival.org/ The impulse for the founding of Cultural Survival came from the processes of 'development' undertaken in the Amazonian regions of South America during the 1960s. The 'opening up' of the Amazonian hinterland and the drastic effects this had on the indigenous peoples living there dramatized the urgent need to defend the human rights of these 'victims of progress.' It was also clear that this was not solely an Amazonian problem. All over the world, governments were seeking to extract resources from areas that had not hitherto been developed and, in the process, were mistreating their indigenous inhabitants. What should be done about this? What could be done about this? The nonprofit organization Cultural Survival was founded to try to answer these questions and to work for the solutions developed by the nascent indigenous and pro-indigenous movements. Notable Feature(s): Special project descriptions; weekly indigenous news; compendium of materials and articles on law and self-determination; Indigenous Action Network. Contact Information: Dr. Ian McIntosh 215 Prospect Street Cambridge, MA   02139 USA Telephone: 617.441.5410   Fax: 617.441.5417 Email: csinc@cs.org December 18 - Portal for Protection of the Rights of Migrants http://www.december18.net/intro.htm DECEMBER 18 is a young and small online organization named after the International Day of Solidarity with Migrants, initiated in 1997 by Filipino and other Asian migrant organizations. It was on December 18, 1990 that the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families was approved by the UN General Assembly. On December 4th, 2000, the United Nations proclaimed the 18th December as International Migrant's Day. The mission of the December 18 is to promote and protect the rights of migrants with dignity and respect as basic values. Our goal is to support the work of migrant organizations in the different regions by using the Internet as a tool for advocacy, networking and the dissemination of information. Contact Information: December 18 Attention: Ms. Myriam De Feyter POSTBUS 22 B - 9820 Merelbeke Belgium Fax: 0032/9/3519762 Email: info@december18.net Defense for Children International (DCI) http://www.defence-for-children.org/ DCI is an independent non-governmental organisation set up during the International Year of the Child (1979) to ensure on-going, practical , systematic and concerted international action specially directed towards promoting and protecting the rights of the child. DCI aims include fostering awareness about , and solidarity around, children's rights situations, issues and initiatives throughout the world; seeking, promoting and implementing the most effective means of securing the protection of the rights in concrete situations, from both a preventative and curative standpoint. One critical goal is to work for improved international standards in the children's rights sphere. DCI is an international movement which has membership of both individuals and organisations involved with or supporting its work in over 60 countries on all continents, national sections in 50 countries and subscribers, correspondents and information exchange agreements in many more. It has consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council , with UNICEF, with UNESCO and with the Council of Europe. Notable Feature(s): Publications and additional information are available from the DCI headquarters. Contact Information: Defence for Children International 1 rue de Varembe PO Box 88 Geneva 20   1221 Switzerland Email: dci-hq@pingnet.ch Derechos Human Rights http://www.derechos.org/ Derechos Human Rights is the first Internet-based human rights organization. The purpose is to work for the promotion and respect of human rights all over the world, for the right to privacy and against impunity for human rights violators. Derechos uses the Internet as its primary information and communication tool. Derechos works with human rights organizations in Latin America and around the world to report accurate and timely information on the human rights situations in different areas. Derechos also offers individuals opportunities to help, sponsors several human rights mailing lists, publishes an online human rights journal, and works to preserve the memory of (and seek justice for) individuals who have disappeared. Digital Freedom Network (DFN) http://dfn.org/index.htm The Digital Freedom Network promotes human rights around the world by developing new methods of activism with Internet technology and by providing an online voice to those attacked simply for expressing themselves. Notable Feature(s): Human rights summaries; action alerts; news summaries; special reports. Contact Information: Digital Freedom Network 520 Broad Street Newark, NJ   07102-3111 USA Telephone: 973.438.4365   Fax: 973.438.1474 Email: info@dfn.org Directory of Human Rights Organizations http://www.engagedpage.com/human.html Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) http://www.dpi.org/index.html http://www.dpi.org/DI.html The purpose of Disabled Peoples' International (DPI) is to promote the Human Rights of People with Disabilities through full participation, equalization of opportunity and development. DPI is a grassroots, cross-disability network with member organizations in over 158 countries, over half of which are in the developing world. DPI is administrated through the headquarters in Winnipeg, Canada, and through eight Regional Development Offices. DPI has consultative status with the ECOSOC, UNESCO and the ILO, and has official observer status at the United Nations General Assembly. The main functions of DPI are development, human rights, communications, advocacy, and public education. Notable Feature(s): Disability International, the worldwide magazine of DPI, chronicles the international aspirations and challenges of DPI and brings to readers firsthand accounts of the grassroots struggles of people with disabilities. Every issue carries information about products and resources, such as tourist information, career opportunities, or the latest technological advances that help put disabled people on an equal footing in all aspects of their lives. Contact Information: Susan Morgan, Managing Editor Disabled Peoples' International 101-7 Evergreen Place Winnipeg, Manitoba   R3L 2T3 Canada Telephone: 204.287.8010   Fax: 204.453.1367 Email: dpi@dpi.org Documentation Center of Cambodia http://www.dccam.org http://www.dccam.org/Publication/Monographs/Stiled%20Lives.pdf DC-Cam has two main objectives. The first is to record and preserve the history of the Khmer Rouge regime for future generations. The second is to compile and organize information that can serve as potential evidence in a legal accounting for the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. These objectives represent our promotion of memory and justice, both of which are critical foundations for the rule of law and genuine national reconciliation in Cambodia. To accomplish these objectives, DC-Cam carries out ongoing research to compile and analyze primary documentary materials collected through various means (including fact-finding missions abroad), attempting to understand how they fit into the overall historical context of the Khmer Rouge period. A society cannot know itself if it does not have an accurate memory of its own history. Toward this end, DC-Cam is working to reconstruct Cambodia’s modern history, much of which has been obscured by the flames of war and genocide. DC-Cam's quest for memory and justice has more to do with the future than with the past. It is about the struggle for truth in the face of an overwhelming power that virtually destroyed our society, a power that continues in more subtle ways to threaten our aspirations for a peaceful future. The violence of that power shattered Cambodian society and scattered the Cambodian people across the planet in a terrible diaspora. But no matter how far or near to the homeland, and whether they are survivors or the new generation born after the overthrow of Pol Pot, all Cambodians still suffer from a profound sense of dislocation. This dislocation is rooted in a loss deeper than material deprivation or personal bereavement. It is a loss that can never be recovered, and thus full healing of the wounds of genocide will require that something new be built to take the place of that which has been lost. By reconstructing a historical narrative of what happened to Cambodia, and by striving for justice where that is an appropriate remedy, we aim to lay a foundation upon which all Cambodians can find firm footing in moving toward a better future. Since its inception, the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam) has been at the forefront of documenting the myriad crimes and atrocities of the Khmer Rouge era. DC-Cam was founded after the U.S. Congress passed the Cambodian Genocide Justice Act in April 1994, which was signed into law by President Clinton. That legislation established the Office of Cambodian Genocide Investigations in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in July 1994, which was charged with investigating the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1979). Notable Feature(s): Full text and photographs of the DC-Cam book Stilled Lives: Photographs from the Cambodian Genocide. Every Cambodian family, from that of the king to that of the poorest peasant, has had at least one member who died or simply disappeared during the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror. Nearly two million people were executed, starved or worked to death, and the legacy of the genocide is still with Cambodia's families today. The country resembles one vast, broken family and healing it will take generations. This book is not about the victims. Through photographs and the recollections of perpetrators and their families, it tells of those who brought great tragedy on us all. Their pictures and words teach us the importance of recognizing the humanity common to all of us, of the need to respect every human being's rights regardless of their crimes and regardless of our differences. They show the strength of the human spirit which is capable of enduring so much. These are the stories of thirty-five men and sixteen women who joined the Khmer Rouge revolution. Most of them were recruits in their early- to mid-20s, and all were either conscripted by their village chiefs or volunteered. Contact Information: Youk Chhang, director Documentation Center of Cambodia P.O. Box 1110 Phnom Penh Cambodia Telephone: +855 (23) 211-875   Fax: +855 (23) 210-358 Email: dccam@online.com.kh DPK Consulting - Navigating Change in the Public Sector http://www.dpkconsulting.com http://www.dpkconsulting.com/files/NewsletterFeb02.pdf DPK Consulting is a California-based partnership founded by William E. Davis and Robert W. Page, Jr. in 1993. DPK works at the local, county, state, and national levels, assisting governmental institutions to improve public resource management, especially in developing and implementing good governance projects. DPK has extensive experience working with emerging democratic institutions and is uniquely familiar with the challenges of modernizing justice systems in developing countries. The focus of DPK in its formative years was almost exclusively on rule of law projects in Latin America, reflecting the founding partners' life-long commitment to justice sector issues in the region. As the firm has matured, the geographic and substantive focus of the firm has expanded. In addition to on-going projects in Latin America, DPK has projects in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. The firm's substantive scope now includes such initiatives as anti-corruption, local governance and urban management, planning and design of public sector systems, and automation of management information systems, in addition to extensive administration of justice programs. The limitations of funding and time to develop project activities often result in the need to test or develop "best practices” on a pilot basis versus full nationwide implementation. The pilot approach offers a means to demonstrate that there is a better way. DPK is a firm that seeks practical and tangible solutions. For that reason, it utilizes the pilot approach in almost all of its assignments. Notable Feature(s): DPK newsletter update on pilot projects in Bangladesh, Bolivia, Kosovo, Pakistan, Ecuador, and elsewhere around the world. Contact Information: DPK Consulting 605 Market Street Suite 800 San Francisco, CA   94105 USA Telephone: 415.495.7772   Fax: 415.495.6017 Email: dpk@dpkconsulting.com DPK Consulting - Navigating Change in the Public Sector http://www.dpkconsulting.com/files/NewsletterFeb02.pdf DPK Consulting works in developing and transitional countries assisting governmental institutions to improve public resource management. The firm's substantive scope includes rule of law and administration of justice, anti-corruption, local governance and urban management, planning and design of public sector systems, and automation of management information systems. Notable Feature(s): Los Angeles Times, May 2003 article on the firm's fundamental approach to building legal infrastructure in emerging or torn countries; descriptions of active projects around the world; archived newsletters of DPK work in advancing the rule of law and administration and accessibility of justice to all. Contact Information: DPK Consulting 605 Market Street Suite 800 San Francisco, CA   94105 USA Telephone: 415.495.7772   Email: dpk@dpkconsulting.com E-Law: Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide http://www.elaw.org/ The Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW) gives public interest lawyers and scientists around the world the skills and resources they need to protect the environment through law. Grassroots lawyers from 10 countries founded E-LAW in 1989. Now, nearly 300 grassroots lawyers and scientists in 60 countries call on the E-LAW network for critical legal and scientific tools. E-LAW advocates serve low-income communities around the world, helping citizens strengthen and enforce laws to protect themselves and their communities from toxic pollution and environmental degradation. E-LAW advocates are building a sustainable future by helping citizens participate in policy decisions about the environment. By giving grassroots advocates access to critical legal and scientific resources, E-LAW strengthens these advocates to challenge environmental abuses and pursue environmental justice. E-LAW U.S. helps grassroots advocates gain the skills and legal and scientific resources they need to challenge environmental abuses. Advocates call on the E-LAW network for model statutes and regulations, information about polluters, and court decisions that protect the environment. They also obtain information about the scientific questions that are at the heart of environmental challenges, including identifying the health risks of pesticides, providing model habitat restoration plans, and providing information about the best available technology to reduce industrial pollution. Notable Feature(s): Extensive collection of resources, legal opinions, model laws, reports; quarterly PDF newsletter E-LAW Advocate; news bulletins. Contact Information: Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-LAW) 1877 Garden Avenue Eugene, OR   97403 USA Telephone: 541.687.8454   Fax: 541.687.0535 Email: elawus@elaw.org EarthRights International (ERI) http://www.earthrights.org/ EarthRights International is a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that combines the power of law and the power of people in defense of human rights and the environment, our Earth rights. Earth rights are those rights that demonstrate the connection between human well-being and a sound environment, and include the right to a healthy environment, the right to speak out and act to protect the environment, and the right to participate in development decisions. ERI's mission is to protect human beings and their natural environment from abuses occurring in the name of development. It is impossible to abolish human rights abuses without addressing their frequent underlying causes, the exploitation and degradation of the environment. Likewise, ERI recognizes that we cannot safeguard the environment without ensuring that people are free to protect themselves and their homelands. All over the world, violations of human rights and the destruction of the environment go hand-in-hand. These earth rights abuses are often exacerbated by unfettered free trade and liberalized transnational investment. Notable Feature(s): News; court materials, briefs, and judicial rulings in the ERI Resource Center; publications. Contact Information: EarthRights International 2012 Massachusetts Ave.NW Ste. 500 Washington, D.C.   20036 USA Telephone: 202.466.5188   Fax: 202.466.5189 Email: infousa@earthrights.org ECLT Foundation http://www.eclt.org/index.html The ECLT Foundation is based upon a unique partnership between the trade unions, the tobacco growers and the corporate sector that addresses one of the most pressing issues facing us in the era of globalisation: child labour. Its goal is to contribute to the elimination of child labour in the tobacco growing sector in order to provide children with an upbringing that gives them the best chance to succeed in all aspects of life. Notable Feature(s): Program guidelines; best practice information on case studies in Mexico and Brazil; news; directory of international, NGO and other organizations and corporations involved in trying to eliminate child labor, particularly in tobacco growing. Contact Information: ECLT Foundation 28 rue du Village 1214 Vernier Geneva Switzerland Telephone: +41 22 306 1444   Fax: +41 22 306 1449 Email: eclt@eclt.org Economic Human Rights: The Time Has Come http://www.foodfirst.org/progs/humanrts/ Contact Information: Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy 398 60th Street Oakland, CA   94608 USA Telephone: 510.654.4400   Fax: 510.654.4551 Email: foodfirst@foodfirst.org Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) http://www.epic.org/ http://www.fordfound.org/publications/ff_report/view_ff_report_detail.cfm?report_index=378 EPIC is a public interest research center in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1994 to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues and to protect privacy, the First Amendment, and constitutional values. Notable Feature(s): An extensive collection of news and resources on privacy issues, legal cases, court decisions and opinions, examples of surveillance; newsletter Alerts biweekly; Public Eyes, Private Eyes - 'Function Creep' and the Right to be Left Alone - by Cynthia L. Cooper for the Ford Foundation, writing about EPIC aims and activities, oversight and discoveries of surveillance cameras positioned in unlikely and privacy-robbing locations. Contact Information: Electronic Privacy Information Center 1718 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 200 Washington, DC   20009 USA Telephone: 202.483.1140   Fax: 202.483.1248 Email: info@epic.org Electronic Resource Centre for Human Rights Education http://www.hrea.org The Electronic Resource Centre for Human Rights Education is maintained by Human Rights Education Associates (HREA). It offer a bi-weekly newsletter of up-to-date news, opportunities and other resources. To subscribe to ERC-L send an e-mail to: Majordomo@hrea.org with the following message: subscribe erc-l. To unsubscribe substitute "subscribe" with "unsubscribe". If you have problems (un)subscribing, please contact Lauren Freimauer, e-mail: lauren@hrea.org. Archives of previous newsletters can be found at: http://www.hrea.org/lists/erc-l/markup/maillist.html Notable Feature(s): Library of more than 600 full-text guides, curricula, textbooks and other documents to use for formal and informal education and training in human rights. Contact Information: Email: erc@hrea.org Ella Baker Center for Human Rights http://www.ellabakercenter.org/ Van Jones, one of the inaugural group of U.S./Canada Ashoka Fellows, is bringing a higher standard of accountability to the criminal justice system at a time when the number of U.S. prisons is multiplying and police harassment is becoming an issue of increasing public concern. Through the Ella Baker Center he is leading an aggressive media campaign, creating civilian review boards, providing a police brutality hotline, and organizing young people - the largest client group of the criminal justice system. Contact Information: Van Jones Ella Baker Center for Human Rights 1230 Market Street #409 San Francisco, CA   94102 USA Telephone: 415.951.4844   Fax: 415.951.4813 Email: van@ellabakercenter.org End Violence Against Women (ENDVAW) http://www.endvaw.org/ The End Violence Against Women site provides policymakers, researchers, health communication specialists and others with the latest information and materials from around the world that are related to violence against women. The site allows the user to access policy documentation, articles and publications on the latest research, training materials and curricula, and communication materials such as videos, brochures and posters. Notable Feature(s): News and events; a Listserv offering its members regular updates on the newest information and materials added to the website, up-to-date information on upcoming events and new publications, and monitored discussions on issues relating to violence against women. Contact Information: End Violence Against Women Johns Hopkins Population Information Program 111 Market Place Suite 310 Baltimore, MD   21202 USA Email: endvaw@jhuccp.org Environmental Justice Resource Center http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/ The Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University was formed in 1994 to serve as a research, policy, and information clearinghouse on issues related to environmental justice, race and the environment, civil rights, facility siting, land use planning, brownfields, transportation equity, suburban sprawl, and Smart Growth. The overall goal of the center is to assist, support, train, and educate people of color students, professionals, and grassroots community leaders with the goal of facilitating their inclusion into the mainstream of environmental decision-making. Contact Information: Dr. Robert H. Bullard, Director Environmental Justice Resource Center James P. Brawley Drive at Fair Street, SW Atlanta, GA   30314 USA Telephone: 404.880.6911   Fax: 404.880.6909 Email: ejrc@cau.edu Environmental Justice: An Interview with Dr. Robert H. Bullard http://www.igc.org/igc/en/hg/bullard.html Here is the transcript of an interview with Dr. Robert Bullard, one of the pioneering scholars and activists in the environmental justice movement. European Court of Human Rights http://www.echr.coe.int/ The European Court of Human Rights was set up in 1959 under the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights to hear complaints of violations by the Contracting States of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention, including the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to liberty, the right to a fair trial, the right to a private and family life and the freedoms of expression, of religion and of association. On 1 November 1998 Protocol No. 11 to the Convention entered into force, replacing the two original enforcement institutions, the part-time Court and European Commission of Human Rights, by a full-time Court with compulsory jurisdiction. Notable Feature(s): European Convention on Human Rights in languages relevant to all signatory countries. Contact Information: Email: Webmaster@echr.coe.int Everbody's Legal Dictionary http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/dictionary/wordindex.cfm http://www.nolo.com/index.cfm This dictionary contains plain-English definitions for over a thousand legal terms and is updated regularly. Notable Feature(s): Numerous law and legal topics, e-newsletters, and practical advice for starting a small business, etc., are accessible from the Nolo Law for All home page. Contact Information: Nolo 950 Parker Street Berkeley, CA   94710-2524 USA Telephone: 800.728.3555   Fax: 800.645.0895 Email: cs@nolo.com Focus on alternative dispute resolution and juvenile justice: Bangladesh, Trinidad, Malawi, and Grenada and St. Lucia http://www.penalreform.org/english/nlaccess2_2.htm http://www.penalreform.org/english/nlaccess.htm From Prison Reform International (PRI) an update on model reforms and alternative justice initiatives. Contact Information: Penal Reform International Unit 450 The Bon Marche Centre 241 - 251 Ferndale Road Brixton, SW9 8BJ United Kingdom Telephone: 44 (0)20 7924 95 75   Fax: 44 (0) 20 7924 96 97 Email: Headofsecretariat@pri.org.uk FoodFirst Information and Action Network http://www.foodfirst.org/fian/fhome.htm Contact Information: FoodFirst Information and Action Network The Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) 398 60th Street Oakland, CA   94618 USA Telephone: (510) 654-4400   Fax: (510) 654-4551 Email: foodfirst@foodfirst.org Foreign and International Law http://www.washlaw.edu/forint/ Contact Information: Email: forint@law.wuacc.edu Free the Children International http://www.freethechildren.org/ Free the Children is a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to eliminating the exploitation of children around the world, by encouraging youth to volunteer in, as well as to create programs and activities that relieve the plight of underprivileged children. Notable Feature(s): Information and programs to combat child labor and sexual exploitation; educational initiatives; newsletter. Contact Information: Free the Children 1750 Steeles Avenue West Suite 218 Concord, Ontario Canada Email: freechild@clo.com Freedom Now http://www.freedom-now.org/main.htm Freedom Now is an all-volunteer, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to facilitate representation for arbitrarily detained individuals who have neither used nor advocated violence and whose detention violates fundamental principles of international law. Its approach is to use focused legal, political, and public relations advocacy efforts designed to compel the release of individuals deprived of their liberty in violation of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international human rights instruments. Notable Feature(s): Current campaigns working for release of prisoners of conscience; links to related organizations and resources; details for submitting a case of detention for review and possible representation by the Freedom Now network. Contact Information: Jeremy B. Zucker Freedom Now P.O. Box 30126 Bethesda, MD   20824-0216 USA Telephone: 301.279.9536   Email: jzucker@freedomnow.org Global Directory of Human Rights Organizations http://www.engagedpage.com/human.html Global March Against Child Labour http://www.globalmarch.org/main.html Contact Information: Global March International Secretariat L-6 Kalkaji New Delhi-19 India Telephone: (91 11) 622-4899   Fax: (91 11) 623-6818 Email: yatra@del2.vsnl.net.in childhood@globalmarch.org Health and Human Rights Database http://www.glphr.org/inetdb.htm An excellent gateway to information and organizations useful to global lawyers and physicians working for human rights. Global Lawyers and Physicians' mission is to work at the local, national, and international levels through collaboration and partnerships with individuals, NGOs, IGOs, and governments on issues such as the global implementation of the health-related provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, with a focus on health and human rights, patient rights, and human experimentation. Contact Information: Adrianne Head Boston University School of Public Health Email: glp@bu.edu Heiros Gamos (HG) — the Comprehensive Legal Site http://www.hg.org/hg.html HRW 2002 Report on the United States http://www.hrw.org/wr2k2/us.html During the first eight months of George W. Bush's presidency, the promotion of human rights occupied a low priority in the administration's domestic political agenda. The president and Attorney General John Ashcroft were criticized for insufficient concern about violations of individual rights and liberties, particularly in the criminal justice context. Questions about the government's commitment to protect basic rights increased markedly as it developed anti-terrorist measures after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. New laws permitting the indefinite detention of non-citizens, special military commissions to try suspected terrorists, the detention of over 1,000 people, and the abrogation of the confidentiality of attorney-client communications for certain detainees, demonstrated the administration's troubling disregard for well established human rights safeguards as it sought to protect national security. Indeed, in taking steps to defend the U.S. from terrorists, the government adopted measures that eroded key values and principles it said it sought to protect, including the rule of law. Human rights violations prevalent during previous years continued under the new president. They were most apparent in the criminal justice system--including police brutality, unjustified racial disparities in incarceration, abusive conditions of confinement, and use of the death penalty, including the execution of mentally handicapped and juvenile offenders. But extensively documented violations also included violations of immigrants' rights, workers' rights (including those of migrant workers), harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youth in schools, and of gay and lesbian members of the armed forces. Contact Information: Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue 34th Floor New York, NY   10118-3299 USA Telephone: 212.290.4700   Fax: 212.736.1300 Email: hrwnyc@hrw.org Human Rights and Armed Conflict: World Report 2004 http://www.hrw.org/wr2k4/ This year's Human Rights Watch World Report offers something new. Past volumes have featured summaries of human-rights-related developments in each of the seventy or so countries and themes we cover in-depth each year. This year, to mark its 25th anniversary Human Rights Watch chose a single theme—human rights and armed conflict—and has produced a series of more analytical, reflective essays. Each essay takes stock of developments in a specific area and offers suggestions on the way forward. The focus this year on armed conflict was influenced by events, most obviously the war in Iraq and continuing armed conflict in Africa, particularly in the Great Lakes region and in West Africa. The year 2003 also saw renewed bloodshed in Russia (Chechnya) and Indonesia (Aceh), to name only two of the many conflicts that continued to destroy civilian lives and the institutions and infrastructure on which they depend: justice, education, health, water. Almost without exception, the world’s worst human rights and humanitarian crises take place in combat zones. The human rights implications of the global campaign against terrorism, often portrayed by those who wage it as a new kind of war, loom large in a number of the essays. Entries on the United States and Russia (Chechnya) in particular demonstrate a clear and troubling trend: an assault on human rights in the name of counter-terrorism. Jamie Fellner and Alison Parker describe various ways in which the Bush administration is citing threats to national security as a justification for putting executive action above the law in the United States. The Bush Administration's indifference to norms of accountability that are at the core of the U.S. governmental structure as well as the international human rights framework is deeply troubling internationally and for the American public as well. Rachel Denber's essay on Chechnya shows how the international community, despite well-intended words on the importance of human rights and humanitarian law, has failed dismally to engage with the Russian government over its appalling human rights record in Chechnya, a conflict now justified by Russian authorities as their contribution to the global war on terror. Notable Feature(s): Full text online. In Arabic, English, Spanish, and German. Contact Information: Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue 34th Floor New York, NY   10118-3299 U.S.A. Telephone: 212.290.4700   Fax: 212.736.1300 Email: hrwnyc@hrw.org Human Rights Around the World http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/world.html This site provides the latest information specific to various countries and regions. It is another feature of the Derechos Web site that tracks human rights violations and remedial actions wherever they are happening. Human Rights Custom Newspaper Database Search http://www.comminit.com/human-rights/newssearch.html http://www.comminit.com/ The Communication Initiative operates "Search by Right" of 200+ developing country newspapers and 10 leading global newspapers for recent stories on human rights-related issues. The search functionality works to present news coverage according to its relevance to the specific articles comprising the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Notable Feature(s): Text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Contact Information: Warren Feek Email: wfeek@comminit.com Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) http://www.hrea.org/ Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an a-political, non-profit organisation headquartered in The Netherlands whose main mission is to support efforts aimed at introducing human rights concepts and values into educational curricula and teaching practices. HREA is dedicated to quality education and training to promote understanding, attitudes and actions to protect human rights, and to foster the development of peaceable, free and just communities. Notable Feature(s): Comprehensive collection of Web materials, international organizations and networks, training programs, human rights education funders, audio-visual tools, and more in the Human Rights Education Resourcebook; distance learning courses; the HRE Library containing more than 600 full-text guides, curricula, textbooks and other documents that can be used for both formal and non-formal education in human rights. Contact Information: Felisa Tibbitts, Executive Director Human Rights Education Associates - USA Office PO Box 382396 Cambridge, Massachusetts   02238 USA Telephone: 617.625.0278   Fax: 617.249.0278 Email: info@hrea.org ftibbitts@hrea.org Human Rights First http://www.humanrightsfirst.org Formerly called the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Human Rights First works in the United States and abroad to create a secure and humane world by advancing justice, human dignity and respect for the rule of law. HRF supports human rights activists who fight for basic freedoms and peaceful change at the local level; protects refugees in flight from persecution and repression; helps build a strong international system of justice and accountability; and makes sure human rights laws and principles are enforced in the United States and abroad. Notable Feature(s): Program areas; publications; e-subscription to Rights Wire, a periodic newsletter providing analysis of timely human rights issues, and other news services. Contact Information: Michael Posner, Executive Director Human Rights First 333 Seventh Avenue, 13th Floor New York, NY   10001 USA Telephone: 212.845.5200   Fax: 212.845.5299 Email: communications@humanrightsfirst.org Human Rights for All http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/HumanRightsForAll.asp The site provides some examples (not exhaustive by any means) of countries that have committed or contributed to human rights violations, peoples that have suffered violations, as well as additional issues around the topic. Contact Information: Anup Shah Email: comments@globalissues.org Human Rights Internet (HRI) http://www.hri.ca/ Founded in 1976, Human Rights Internet (HRI) is a world leader in the exchange of information within the worldwide human rights community. A key objective of the organization is to support the work of the global non-governmental community in its struggle to obtain human rights for all. To this end, HRI promotes human rights education, stimulates research, encourages the sharing of information, and builds international solidarity among those committed to the principles enshrined in the International Bill of Human Rights. Notable Feature(s): Online publications; discussion Forums on child and youth rights, business and human rights, and women's rights. Contact Information: Human Rights Internet 8 York Street Suite 302 Ottawa, Ontario   K1N 5S6 Canada Telephone: 613.789.7407   Fax: 613.789.7414 Email: hri@hri.ca Human Rights on the Internet – directory of sites http://www.amnesty.org/aisect/links.htm Contact Information: Amnesty International 600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th floor Washington, DC   20003 USA Telephone: +1 202 544 0200   Fax: +1 202 546 7142 Email: admin-us@aiusa.org Human Rights Research and Education http://www.webcom.com/hrin/research.html An excellent directory of sites and information on country reports, trafficking, human rights and humanitarian law, refugees, international agreements and documents. Notable Feature(s): Additional resources and opportunities for news, advocacy, action, education, travel, and involvement in protecting human rights worldwide. Contact Information: Human Rights Interactive Network 7855 Firestone Way Antelope, CA   95843 USA Email: regello@svisions.com Human Rights Watch (HRW) http://www.hrw.org/ Human Rights Watch is the largest human rights organization based in the United States. HRW researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world. Human Rights Watch then publishes those findings in dozens of books and reports every year, generating extensive coverage in local and international media. This publicity helps to embarrass abusive governments in the eyes of their citizens and the world. Human Rights Watch then meets with government officials to urge changes in policy and practice -- at the United Nations, the European Union, in Washington and in capitals around the world. In extreme circumstances, HRW presses for the withdrawal of military and economic support from governments that egregiously violate the rights of their people. In moments of crisis, the organization provides up-to-the-minute information about conflicts while they are underway. Refugee accounts, which were collected, synthesized and cross-corroborated by our researchers, helped shape the response of the international community to recent wars in Kosovo and Chechnya. Human Rights Watch is based in New York, with offices in Brussels, London, Moscow, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, and Washington. It often sets up temporary offices in regions where intensive investigations are underway, and where HRW researchers regularly travel to the countries they cover, unless security concerns prevent it. Notable Feature(s): Global issues; up-to-the minute news and current events; in-depth focus on international justice; online ordering of HRW publications. Contact Information: Human Rights Watch 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY   10118-3299 USA Telephone: 212.290.4700   Fax: 212.736.1300 Email: hrwnyc@hrw.org Human Rights Watch International Film Festival http://www.hrw.org/hrw/iff/ The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival is the world's leading showcase for distinguished fiction, documentary, and animated films and videos that incorporate human rights themes. The Festival presents works that give a human face and personal viewpoints, to threats against political and individual freedom. Notable Feature(s): Complete archive (including descriptions, synopses, contact info, and distributors) of all festival films: by filmmaker and by country. Contact Information: Bruni Burres / Heather Harding Human Rights Watch International Film Festival 350 Fifth Avenue 34th Floor New York, NY   10118-3299 USA Telephone: 212.290.4700   Human Strategies for Human Rights (HSHR) http://www.hshr.org/ Human Strategies for Human Rights (HSHR) combines the practical and technical features of two distinct disciplines - business management and human rights law. This combination is formulated as a means to professionally pursue human right protection mechanisms in an informed and organized manner. Basic business principles in information management, public relations, project management, and cost benefit analysis are integrated with human rights terminology and human rights promotion and protection mechanisms contained in legal and political instruments and with procedures for their realization located in government institutions (national, regional, and international). HSHR works with grassroots populations, primarily through NGOs, to inspire and empower community leaders to organize and act in an informed, inclusive and innovative manner. HSHR's approach is that through skills training, the provision of useful information, and the encouragement of conversation circles where local people come together to discuss their problems and to critically think through solutions, that human development, social cohesion, and human rights can be realized. Notable Feature(s): A Human Rights Approach to Poverty Reduction Strategies; draft guidelines for UN Human Rights in Development program. Contact Information: Gina Gagnon, Executive Director, HSHR Human Strategies for Human Rights 73-612 Highway 111 Suite 6 Palm Desert, CA   92260 U.S.A. Telephone: 760.862.1254   Fax: 760.346.6875 Email: info@hshr.org gina@hshr.org Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery http://www.gvnet.com/humantrafficking "As unimaginable as it seems, slavery and bondage still persist in the early 21st century. Millions of people around the world still suffer in silence in slave-like situations of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. Trafficking in persons is one of the greatest human rights challenges of our time." [U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2003] Notable Feature(s): Detailed progress reports from 123 countries. Contact Information: Professor Martin Patt Email: profpatt@uml.edu Human Trafficking - A Service of Polaris Project http://www.humantrafficking.com/humantrafficking/htindex.aspx http://www.polarisproject.org/polarisproject/ The mission of HumanTrafficking.com is to serve as a research and networking center for the anti-trafficking community. The site is designed to strengthen and expand the movement through helping us communicate with each other, learn from one another, and mutually support our work. It is a community-maintained site, so contributions and involvement from everyone are encouraged to help make the site more effective. HumanTrafficking.com is maintained by the Polaris Network, a diverse team of committed volunteers around the world who are contributing their time, talent, and passion to end trafficking in women and children. Notable Feature(s): Online discussion forums on trafficking issues around the world; PolarisTrac, the premier research database on sex trafficking issues, with thousands of full-text resources and detailed search options and hundreds of new resources added each week, along with the latest trafficking news in English, Korean, and Chinese; job bulletin; calendar. Contact Information: Polaris Project Office Telephone: 202.547.7909   Fax: 202.547.6654 Email: Info@PolarisProject.org HURIDOCS - Human Rights Information and Documentation Service International http://www.huridocs.org/ HURIDOCS, initiated in 1979 and formally established in 1982, is a global network of human rights organisations. The aim of HURIDOCS is to improve access to and the dissemination of public information on human rights through more effective, appropriate and compatible methods and techniques of information handling. Notable Feature(s): Tools: a new series of manuals aimed to help build the capacity of human rights organizations in monitoring and documentation; up-to-date news published in English, French, and Spanish. Contact Information: Manuel Guzman, Executive Director HURIDOCS Secretariat 48, chemin du Grand-Montfleury CH-1290 Versoix Switzerland Telephone: 41.22.7555252   Fax: 41.22.7555260 Email: huridocs@comlink.org Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights and the Environment Bibliography http://new.aaanet.org/committees/cfhr/bibindenv.htm Contact Information: American Anthropological Association 4350 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 640 Arlington, VA   22203-1620 USA Telephone: 703.528.1902   Fax: 703.528.3546 Email: lvanolst@aaanet.org Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution (IIMCR) http://www.iimcr.org/about/default.asp The Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution is a Washington, DC based, nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the use of peaceful conflict resolution techniques among a generation of future leaders through the design and implementation of unique programs and services. Contact Information: Institute for International Mediation & Conflict Resolution 1424 K Street, N.W., Suite 650 Washington, DC   20005 USA Telephone: 202.347.2042   Fax: 202.347.2440 Email: info@iimcr.org Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) http://www.ild.org.pe/ Four billion people in developing and post-Soviet nations —two thirds of the world's population— have been locked out of the global economy: forced to operate outside the rule of law, they have no legal identity, no credit, no capital, and thus no way to prosper. Hernando de Soto's Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD), based in Lima, Peru, has created a key that can open the system to everyonw—a time-tested strategy for legal reform that offers the majority of the world's people a stake in the market economy. The ILD provides a manageable program for building an inclusive property system that focuses on the needs of the poor and middle classes and provides nations with strategies to build widespread support for the reforms and to overcome the resistance of vested interests. Notable Feature(s): History of ILD; Hernando de Soto articles, speeches, and interviews. Contact Information: ILD Las Begonias 441 Of. 901 Lima 27 Peru Telephone: (51-1) 222-6800   Fax: (51-1) 221-6949 Email: postmaster@ild.org.pe International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) http://www.ibj.org In recognition of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Bridges to Justice is dedicated to ensuring the basic legal rights of ordinary citizens in Cambodia, China and Vietnam. Specifically, IBJ works to guarantee the right to all citizens to competent legal representation, the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair trial. To this end, IBJ works to support and enhance governmental legal aid and local criminal defender efforts in Asia to protect citizen rights. IBJ partners with local, national, and international groups, trains local defenders to strengthen legal skills, and assists in the development of local organizational capacity. The collaborative result of interested lawyers, academics, and business leaders, International Bridges to Justice was formed in 2000 to address the legal needs of Asia's citizens. As a certified U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, IBJ is working with the governments of Cambodia, China and Vietnam to assist them in strengthening their rapidly expanding Legal Aid systems. Operating from the premise that just and reliable legal systems translate into secure and stable societies, IBJ focuses on the creation and support of those systems. Notable Feature(s): IBJ founder Karen Tse's vision statement and account of her experiences introducing basic human rights and accountable criminal justice systems to Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. Contact Information: Karen Tse International Bridges to Justice 10 Rue de Berne 1201 Geneva Switzerland Telephone: +41 22 731 24 41   Email: internationalbridges@justice.org International Business and Human Rights http://www.iblf.org/csr/csrwebassist.nsf/content/f1c2a3c4.html http://www.csrforum.com Human rights are increasingly being seen as a business issue. They are inextricably linked to corporate risk and reputation management, whether the company is operating in countries with repressive government, ethnic conflict, weak rule of law or poor labour standards. At issue are the company's core values. Is the company making a public commitment to respect and uphold universal human rights within its legitimate sphere of influence wherever it operates globally, or will it be judged by society at large to be undertaking damage limitation exercises once something has gone wrong? The International Business Leaders Forum sees human rights as an integral part of responsible business practice. This site includes resources on labour rights, business and peace, land rights and indigenous people, women's rights, the right to health, and freedom of information and expression. Contact Information: The Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum 15-16 Cornwall Terrace Regent's Park London NW1 4QP UK Telephone: 44 (0)20 7467 3600   Fax: 44 (0)20 7467 3610 Email: info@iblf.org International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) http://www.savetibet.org/ ICT works to promote human rights and self-determination for Tibetans and to protect their culture and environment. The ICT Web site provides access to a host of materials on the human rights situation today in Tibet and its historical and religious background. Notable Feature(s): Current news, links, press releases. Contact Information: International Campaign for Tibet 1825 K Street NW, Suite 520 Washington, DC   20006 USA Telephone: 202.785.1515   Fax: 202.785.4343 International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) http://www.ictj.org/ The ICTJ was founded in March 2001 to assist societies pursuing accountability for human rights abuse arising from repressive rule, mass atrocity, or armed conflict. As a political transition unfolds after a period of violence or repression, countries as diverse as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sierra Leone, Peru, and East Timor are struggling to come to terms with crimes of the past. In order to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation, government officials and nongovernmental advocates are likely to consider both judicial and nonjudicial responses to human rights crimes. These may include: prosecuting individual perpetrators; offering reparations to victims of state-sponsored violence; establishing truth-seeking initiatives about past abuse; reforming institutions like the police and the courts; and removing human rights abusers from positions of power. Increasingly, these approaches are used together to achieve a more comprehensive and far-reaching sense of justice. Notable Feature(s): TJ policy and strategic thinking and problem solving research; weekly news summary; transitional justice network; Contact Information: Alex Boraine, president International Center for Transitional Justice 20 Exchange Place 33rd Floor New York, NY   10005 USA Telephone: 917.438.9300   Fax: 212.509.6036 Email: info@ictj.org aboraine@ictj.org International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development http://www.ichrdd.ca/ Contact Information: ICHRDD 63, rue de Bresoles Montreal, Quebec   H2Y 1V7 Canada Telephone: (514) 283-6073   Fax: (514) 283-3792 Email: ichrdd@ichrdd.ca International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) http://www.iglhrc.org/ IGLHRC's mission is to protect and advance the human rights of all people and communities subject to discrimination or abuse on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status. Its constituency therefore includes people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and anyone living with HIV or AIDS. A US based non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), IGLHRC responds to such human rights violations around the world through documentation, advocacy, coalition building, public education, and technical assistance. IGLHRC's overarching commitment is to defend the rights of people worldwide to define their own sexualities and gender identities. The organization supports the efforts of individuals and groups to organize to create societies free from heterosexism and homophobia. Notable Feature(s): World action alerts; opportunities to speak out on issues; publications and fact sheets, including subscriptions to the newsletter Outspoken; valuable information on the Asylum Program that provides protection for individuals seeking political asylum or other hardship-based immigration status because of persecution based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV sero-status; valuable links. Contact Information: John Lubotsky International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission 1360 Mission Street, Suite 200 San Francisco, CA   94103 USA Telephone: 415.255.8680   Fax: 415.255.8662 Email: iglhrc@iglhrc.org john@iglhrc.org International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG) http://www.hrfunders.org/ The IHRFG is a multinational network of funders who are committed to supporting the realization of the full spectrum of human rights — civil, cultural, economic, political and social — both at home and abroad, the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the treaties and laws it has generated so that all people may enjoy a truly and fully human existence. The IHRFG began in 1994 as a group of U.S. foundations with "International Human Rights" programs that addressed human rights issues in other parts of the world. Reflecting important advances in the field of human rights, the Group no longer treats human rights as a matter "out there" but rather recognizes the value of human rights work even in the U.S. Now it is IHRFG itself that is international, with members in Canada, Europe and the global South. Notable Feature(s): Funders Database; grantmaking to local, national and regional human rights organizations through the Fund for Global Human Rights (FGHR) ; useful collection of related links. Contact Information: International Human Rights Funders Group c/o Mertz Gilmore Foundation 218 East 18th Street New York, NY   10003 USA Telephone: 212.475.1137   Fax: 212.777.5226 Email: info@HRfunders.org International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law http://www.icnl.org/journal/vol1iss2/index.html ICNL is an international organization whose mission is to facilitate and support the development of civil society and the freedom of association on a global basis. ICNL, in cooperation with other international, national, and local organizations, provides technical assistance for the creation and improvement of laws and regulatory systems that permit, encourage, and regulate the NGO sector in countries around the world. ICNL maintains a documentation center for laws, regulations, self-regulatory materials, and other relevant documents, it provides relevant training and education, and it conducts research relevant to strengthening and improving laws for NGOs. Notable Feature(s): Case Notes on recent decisions worldwide; articles, calendar; book reviews, including one on Non-Profit Handbook by Gary Grobman; Country Reports. Contact Information: INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR NOT-FOR-PROFIT LAW 733 15th St., NW, Suite 420 Washington, DC   20005 USA Email: daitken@icnl.org International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law (Journal) http://www.icnl.org/journal.html International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) http://www.laborrights.org/about/index.html The International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF), a nonprofit action and advocacy organization, uses new and creative means to encourage enforcement of international labor rights. LRF pursues legal and administrative actions on behalf of working people, creates innovative programs and enforcement mechanisms to protect workers' rights, and advocates for better protections for workers through its publications, testimony before national and international hearings, and speeches to academic, religious, and human rights groups. The ILRF focuses on linking trade expansion to enforcement of internationally recognized worker rights in order to more broadly distribute the benefits of increased global trade and economic integration and to strengthen democratic polities and civil societies. Notable Feature(s): Excellent directory of links to labor rights organizations; policy speeches and testimony; suggestions for action; library. Contact Information: The International Labor Rights Fund 733 15th Street, N.W. Suite #920 Washington, DC   20005 USA Telephone: 202.347.4100   Fax: 202.347.4885 Email: laborrights@igc.org International Organization for Migration (IOM) http://www.iom.ch/index2.htm As the leading international organization for migration, IOM acts with its partners in the international community to assist in meeting the growing operational challenges of migration management, advance understanding of migration issues, encourage social and economic development through migration, and uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants. While not part of the United Nations system, IOM maintains close working relations with UN bodies and operational agencies. IOM has as partners a wide range of international and non-governmental organizations. "Migration will be one of the major policy concerns of the twenty-first century. In our shrinking world, more and more people will look to migration - temporary or permanent - as a path to employment, education, freedom or other opportunities. Governments will need to develop sound migration policies and practices. Properly managed, migration can contribute to prosperity, development and mutual understanding among people. IOM exists to help migrants with all their needs and to assist governments in managing migration for the good of all...." Notable Feature(s): Extensive list of publications and official documents and reports; news; links. Contact Information: International Organization for Migration 17 Route des Morillons C.P.71 / CH-1211 Geneva 19 Switzerland Telephone: 41-22-7179111   Fax: 41-22-7986150 Email: info@iom.int International Right to Know: Empowering CommunitiesThrough Corporate Transparency http://www.amnestyusa.org/justearth/irtk.pdf http://www.irtk.org/ In the wake of the Bhopal disaster in 1984, public demand in the U.S. grew for better domestic standards. Communities worried: could something similar happen here? Concerned citizens mobilized to support their “right to know” what chemicals were being used at local facilities. In 1986, the U.S. Congress responded by passing the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA). This law, the cornerstone of U.S. right-to-know laws, requires companies to disclose information about the chemicals they use, store, and release from their facilities. The U.S. government provides this information in a publicly accessible database known as the Toxic Release Inventory. These disclosures help to safeguard communities in the United States, giving people better tools to monitor companies, protect themselves, and promote strong health and safety standards. Ironically, domestic right-to-know laws drafted partly in response to Bhopal do nothing to prevent another Bhopal outside the United States. U.S. companies operating abroad are not required to disclose information that they are required to disclose when they operate in the U.S. The lack of disclosure has resulted in environmental, labor, and human rights abuses, which have given rise to public distrust of the U.S. among communities around the world. Put simply, International Right to Know (IRTK) is an effort to close the right-to-know loophole by requiring companies based in the U.S. or traded on U.S. stock exchanges and their foreign subsidiaries and major contractors to disclose information on overseas operations along the lines of domestic disclosure standards. IRTK would apply to facilities like Union Carbide's former pesticide plant in Bhopal, giving the local residents the same rights as Americans to obtain well-organized information about toxic chemicals in their communities. IRTK goes beyond environmental disclosures and includes information relating to labor and human rights practices. Notable Feature(s): Case studies on the human rights and environmental impact of U.S. corporations working and expanding globally; related links. Contact Information: International Right to Know (IRTK) John Cheverie EarthRights International 1612 K St. NW, Suite 401 Washington, DC   20006 USA Telephone: 202.466.5188   Email: john@earthrights.org International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) http://www.islp.org/index.htm The mission of the International Senior Lawyers Project is to provide a vehicle through which the growing number of skilled and experienced senior attorneys at or near retirement can provide volunteer legal services to the world community. Through the provision of pro bono legal assistance to governments, international charitable organizations, local nonprofit organizations, law schools and indigenous legal assistance providers, ISLP seeks to advance democracy and the rule of law, protect human rights and promote equitable economic opportunities by helping communities and nations implement legal reforms, assisting programs that advance the social and economic well-being of disadvantaged people and building the capacity of local organizations and professionals to meet the needs of their communities. Despite national differences, potential recipients of assistance recognized that many of their legal needs were transnational in nature, encompassing such areas as human rights, the development of legal institutions and legal frameworks, negotiating and drafting legal documents, compliance with and enforcement of international and regional laws, and the development of educational and training programs for lawyers and law students. Contact Information: Jean C. Berman, Esq., Executive Director International Senior Lawyers Project 200 Park Avenue-8th Floor New York, NY   10166 USA Telephone: 212.736.9545   Fax: 212.878.8375 Email: mail@islp.org International Support for Civil Justice Reform in Developing and Transition Countries: An Overview and Evaluation – by Richard E. Messick http://www1.worldbank.org/publicsector/legal/donorsupported.doc Legal and Judicial Capacity Building Project for Bangladesh http://www4.worldbank.org/sprojects/Project.asp?pid=P044810 Links: articles and organizations related to children at risk of exploitation http://www.changemakers.net/library/fieldlink.cfm?field=Children+at+Risk+of+Exploitation Making Standards Work: An International Handbook on Good Prison Practice http://erc.hrea.org/Library/prison_officials/standards.html http://www.penalreform.org/ This is the 2001 second edition from Penal Reform International of an important manual on development and implementation of human rights instruments with regard to law enforcement, prison conditions and standards. Notable Feature(s): Full on-line text of 224-page report. Contact Information: Penal Reform International Unit 450 The Bon Marche Centre 241 - 251 Ferndale Road Brixton, SW9 8BJ UK Telephone: 44 (0)20 7924 95 75   Fax: 44 (0) 20 7924 96 97 Email: Headofsecretariat@pri.org.uk Many Roads to Justice - The Law Related Work of Ford Foundation Grantees Around the World - Edited by Mary McClymont, Stephen Golub http://www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/docs/manyroads.pdf An excellent 372-page case study report from the Peace and Social Justice Program work of The Ford Foundation, specifically that of the Global Law Programs Learning Initiative (GLPLI). Notable Feature(s): Reports from Bangladesh, China, the United States, South Africa, the Andean and the Southern Cone regions of South America, the Philippines, Eastern Europe, and much more. Contact Information: The Ford Foundation 320 East 43rd Street New York, NY   10017 USA Many Roads to Justice: The Law Related Work of Ford Foundation Grantees Around the World http://www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/docs/manyroads.pdf Map for Human Rights Information around the World http://www.derechos.org/human-rights/world.html Contact Information: Derechos Human Rights PO Box 2516 El Cerrito, CA   94530-5516 USA Telephone: 510.528.7794   Fax: 603.372.9710 Email: hr@derechos.org Maximiliano Herrera's Human Rights Site http://www.angelfire.com/ma/maxcrc/ This site is dedicated to the promotion of the democracy and the freedom worldwide. The editor and his global network of collaborators are always working on improving and upgrading their collection of human rights resources and documents. Notable Feature(s): Updated news and links re elections, perceptions of risk, political freedoms, activist organizations, and more. Contact Information: Maximiliano Herrera P.O. Box 791-1002 San Jose Costa Rica Email: maxcrc@yahoo.com Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) http://www.unhchr.ch/ The concern of the United Nations with the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms stems directly from the realization by the international community that "recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world", and from the resultant pledge of States Members of the United Nations "to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms". Notable Feature(s): United Nations Human Rights Documents databases; news; treaties; civil society support initiatives. Contact Information: OHCHR-UNOG 8-14 Avenue de la Paix 1211 Geneva 10 Switzerland Telephone: (41-22) 917-9000   Fax: (41-22) 917-9016 Email: webadmin.hchr@unog.ch OneWorld International http://www.oneworld.net/ OneWorld is one of the Web's premier and authoritative sources of information on social issues affecting people everywhere. Contact Information: OneWorld International Floor 17 89 Albert Embankment London   SE1 7TP United Kingdom Telephone: +44 (0)20 7735 2100   Fax: +44 (0)20 7840 0798 Email: justice@oneworld.net OneWorld US http://www.oneworld.net/us/ This site is the U.S. news and campaign edition of OneWorld International's global network of more than 1,600 citizen sector organizations and campaigns to improve human rights, living conditions, education, health, and opportunities generally. Notable Feature(s): Special reports on topics of particular urgency; news from OneWorld U.S. parners; on-line U.S. partner directory. Contact Information: OneWorld US Benton Foundation 1625 K St., N.W. 11th Floor Washington, DC   20006 USA Telephone: 202.638.5770   Fax: 202.638.5771 Email: us@oneworld.net Penal Reform International (PRI) http://www.penalreform.org/english/frset_pre_en.htm http://www.penalreform.org/ Penal Reform International (PRI) is an international non-governmental organisation. Founded in London, UK, in 1989, PRI has members in five continents and in over 80 countries. PRI develops programmes on a regional basis, assisting both non-governmental organisations and individuals to establish projects in their own countries. It promotes the exchange of information and good practice between countries with related conditions. PRI's regional programmes include sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Notable Feature(s): Library of PRI General Newsletter and its archive of news; extensive collection of articles on alternatives to custody, penal standards, involvement of NGOs in prisons, prison privatisation, and more; excellent directory of links to groups working around the world for change. Contact Information: Penal Reform International (PRI) Unit 450 The Bon Marche Centre 241 - 251 Ferndale Road Brixton, SW9 8BJ United Kingdom Telephone: 44 (0)20 7924 95 75   Fax: 44 (0) 20 7924 96 97 Email: Headofsecretariat@pri.org.uk Peoples Video Network http://www.peoplesvideo.org/ PVN in their own words: "We are a group of media activists with more than 50 public access shows across the country and hundreds of videos documenting the struggle. We have sent correspondents to the Lacondon Jungle, Russia, Cuba, Korea, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and Iraq. We produce and edit videos about issues the corporate media will not touch. Our goal is to break the information blockade of big business media." Notable Feature(s): A comprehensive, international catalog of video documentaries, interviews and other materials on social change and challenges. Contact Information: Peoples Video Network 39 West 14th St., #206 New York, NY   10011 USA Telephone: 212.633.6646   Email: pvnnyc@peoplesvideo.org Perspective on Scavengers and Their Social Change Initiatives http://www.changemakers.net/library/fieldlink.cfm?field=Rights+and+Opportunities+for+Scavengers Promoting the Rule of Law Abroad: The Problem of Knowledge - by Thomas Carothers http://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/wp34.pdf http://www.ceip.org This working paper by Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington argues that there is no evidence that foreign aid for rule-of-law programs actually contributes to democracy or economic development. Among other points he makes is that it is by no means clear that courts are the essence of a rule-of-law system in a country. Only a small percentage of citizens in most Western rule-of-law systems ever have direct contact with courts. In a certain sense courts play a role late in the legal process so it might well be argued that the making of laws is the most generative part of a rule-of-law system. Yet rule-of-law programs have not much focused on legislatures or the role of executive branch agencies in law-making processes. The question of which institutions are most germane to the establishment of the rule of law in a country is actually quite complex and difficult. Yet for the last ten to fifteen years, rule-of-law programs have given dominant attention to judiciaries, without much examination of whether such a focus is really the right one. Contact Information: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC   20036-2103 USA Telephone: 202.483.7600   Fax: 202.483.1840 Email: info@ceip.org Public Citizen Pocket Trade Lawyer: The Alphabet Soup of Globalization - by Lori Wallach, J.D., Director of Global Trade Watch http://www.citizen.org/documents/PTL_nov03.pdf http://www.citizen.org/index.cfm While institutions and agreements like the WTO, NAFTA, and a whole alphabet soup of other globalization mechanisms and institutions have deep and direct impacts on many facets of the daily lives of people everywhere, the meaning and implications of their terms are often unintelligible. First, the agreements are written in a technical trade jargon that the author has dubbed "GATTese." In GATTese, words with a clear meaning in common usage have entirely different meanings or implications. In some cases, one or two words are shorthand for entire twenty-year bodies of trade law jurisprudence that simply are not evident on the face of the term. Second, words used in trade and investment agreements have extremely precise legal meanings that can turn on the slight difference in a verb's tense. Since the text of these agreements is often available only in English (or perhaps also French), nonnative speakers are at a disadvantage. Third, there are certain basics of legal interpretation that most nonlawyers simply do not know—they can mask completely the meaning of trade agreement language. The actual provisions of some of the key mechanisms of globalization—namely, the WTO and NAFTA—are so drastic that simply being able to understand what they mean for environmental, food safety, social justice, and other laws and policies is one of critics' strongest arguments. Meanwhile, innocent errors in interpretation made by critics are often cited by proponents of corporate-managed trade to undermine the credibility of legitimate criticisms. This guide is intended to help people go to the legal sources with an understanding of some of the most essential specialized terms, language, and legal quirks of globalization's instruments. Its goal is to empower the maximum number of people to be able to make their own informed decisions about the often intentionally murky provisions hidden in policies and agreements promoting corporate globalization. Contact Information: Public Citizen 1600 20th Street, NW Washington, DC   20009 U.S.A. Telephone: 202.588.1000   Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) http://www.pili.org/ The goal of the Public Interest Law Initiative in Transitional Societies is to assist the development and facilitate the networking of public interest law communities in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia ("the region") through publications, electronic resources, meetings and capacity-building programs. Columbia Law School launched the Public Interest Law Initiative in 1997 with the support of the Ford Foundation. The term public interest law has increasingly come to be used in the region by individuals and organizations active in human rights, environmental protection and other law-related social issues. The term encompasses activities such as campaigning, strategic litigation, legal aid, clinical legal education, and legal literacy and other public education programs. Bringing together the diverse array of individuals and organizations involved in these activities is a common sense of mission: strengthening the use of law as an instrument for addressing social issues in the name of the public interest. In doing so, public interest law activities apply principles of human rights, democracy, open society and the rule of law. Notable Feature(s): Seemingly exhaustive database of decisions of tribunals applying international human rights law; news; list of public interest law publications on many topics, including the Roma. Contact Information: Columbia Law School Mail code 3525 435 West 116th Street New York, NY   10027 USA Telephone: 212.851.1060   Fax: 212.851.1064 Refugees International (RI) http://www.refintl.org/cgi-bin/ri/index Refugees or displaced persons who have fled their homes have lost everything -- but their suffering. With no means of support, people in flight from an emergency, natural, or man-made disaster often are totally dependent upon the international community for aid and protection. Refugees and displaced persons are often housed in large camps, sometimes for years before they are able to return to their homes. RI advocates for: Early warning: Monitor potential humanitarian crises and take preventive action. Protection: Secure the safety of refugees, displaced persons, and other people threatened by the crisis. Assistance: Meet the basic needs of people for food, water, shelter, clothing, and medical care. RI monitors humanitarian emergencies around the world. It attempts to anticipate problems and press governments and the UN to respond quickly and decisively with preventive action. Notable Feature(s): Vast global collection of bulletins, reports, early warning analyses and alerts of troubled areas everywhere; peacekeeping, food shortage, repatriation, and other issues are extensively addressed; newsletters; regional coverage: Africa, Asia, Europe. Contact Information: Refugees International 1705 N Street, NW Washington, DC   20036 USA Telephone: 202.828.0110   Fax: 202.828.0819 Email: ri@refintl.org Researching Indigenous Peoples Rights Under International Law http://intelligent-internet.info/law/ipr2.html This paper was originally produced in 1992, prior to the Internet and the explosion of information it has engendered. In updating it, the author created links to online materials on indigenous peoples rights under international law. This paper is not a comprehensive guide to information on indigenous people; it is a guide to researching international law and indigenous peoples rights. Contact Information: Steven C. Perkins Email: SPerkins@andromeda.rutgers.edu Sebastião Salgado's Photographs of the Landless in Brazil http://www.nytimes.com/specials/salgado/home/ "I came to Brazil to photograph a story about the peasants fighting not to come to the cities, because this for me is one of the last resistance movements in the world."   – Sebastião Salgado Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) http://www.sdinet.org/ http://www.dialogue.org.za/ In May 1996, People's Dialogue (South Africa), SPARC (India) and urban poor community groups in Asia, Africa and South America met in South Africa to initiate a people's process for strengthening grassroots savings and credit schemes. Collective savings and credit was recognized by all participating organizations as a critical tool for the urban poor in their worldwide struggle against poverty and socio-economic injustice. The participating groups agreed to come together as a network called Shack Dwellers International in Africa and Slum Dwellers International in Asia. Notable Feature(s): Many reports, documents, and news updates on land struggles, housing opportunities, and more, in Asia and Africa. Contact Information: Email: joelb@dialogue.org.za Stop Human Traffic http://www.stophumantraffic.org/ Street Law, Inc. http://www.streetlaw.org/ Street Law, Inc., is practical, participatory education about law, democracy and human rights. Through its philosophy and programs, Street Law empowers people to transform democratic ideals into citizen action. Street Law's programs do not end at the door of the classroom. Each student gains essential lessons that can be used for life. Street Law, Inc.'s educational materials include its flagship practical law text, Street Law, first published by West Publishing Company in 1975. Now in its sixth edition, Street Law, along with its comprehensive set of instructional supplements, is used in high school classrooms in every state. The Street Law Program began at Georgetown University Law Center more than 20 years ago when law students developed a practical law course that was taught in DC Public Schools. Georgetown Law Center's Street Law Program continues to operate in the District of Columbia. Street Law, Inc. continues its affiliation with Georgetown University Law Center. Street Law, Inc. has also brought its educational message of law, democracy, and human rights to nearly two dozen countries around the world. Notable Feature(s): Street Law newsletter of news and programs around the world; Street Law program information; law links including international Street Law programs: Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in South Africa; the Landmark Supreme Court Cases site developed to provide teachers with a full range of resources and activities to support the teaching of landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, helping students explore the key issues of each case. Contact Information: Street Law, Inc. 1010 Wayne Avenue Suite 870 Silver Spring, MD   20910 USA Email: clearinghouse@streetlaw.org SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES ARISING IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS - The right to water http://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/IntlDocs/UNCECSR-General-Comment-right_to_water.pdf This November 2002 General Comment from the UN committee details the legal bases of the right to water. Survival International http://www.survival.org.uk http://www.survival.org.uk/index2.htm Survival is a worldwide organisation supporting tribal peoples. It stands for their right to decide their own future and helps them protect their lives, lands and human rights. Working in close partnership with local indigenous organisations, Survival campaigns for the recognition of the land rights of tribes ranging from the Indians of Amazonia to the Maasai of East Africa, from the Wichí of Argentina to the indigenous tribes of West Papua, from the Innu in Eastern Canada to the 'Bushmen' of Botswana and Namibia. Survival is the only worldwide organisation supporting tribal peoples through public campaigns. It was founded in 1969 after an article by Norman Lewis in the UK's Sunday Times highlighted the massacres, land thefts and genocide taking place in Brazilian Amazonia. Like many modern atrocities, the racist oppression of Brazil's Indians took place in the name of 'economic growth'. Today, Survival has supporters in 82 countries. It works for tribal peoples' rights in three complementary ways: campaigns, education and funding. Survival works closely with local indigenous organisations and focuses on tribal peoples who have the most to lose, usually those most recently in contact with the outside world. Notable Feature(s): World-wide collection of human rights campaign information organized by country; on-line newsletter; links. Contact Information: Survival International 11-15 Emerald Street London WC1N 3QL United Kingdom Telephone: 44 (0)171 242 1441   Fax: +44 (0)171 242 1771 Email: survival@gn.apc.org Terrorism - United Nations ODCCP http://www.undcp.org/terrorism.html Terrorism is a unique form of crime. Terrorist acts often contain elements of warfare, politics and propaganda. For security reasons and due to lack of popular support, terrorist organizations are usually small, making detection and infiltration difficult. Although the goals of terrorists are sometimes shared by wider constituencies, their methods are generally abhorred. Innovations in global communications have given some local groups international standing, while internationally operating groups use today's rapid international transportation to hit, run and hide. Perpetrators of terrorism in one country frequently use other states as safe havens or for fund-raising. Notable Feature(s): Terrorism Prevention Branch; treaties and legal affairs; Trafficking in human beings. Contact Information: United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention Vienna International Centre PO Box 500 A-1400 Vienna Austria Telephone: +43 1 26060 0   Fax: +43 1 26060 5866 Email: odccp@odccp.org webmaster@undcp.org The Abraham Fund http://www.coexistence.org/about/index.html The Abraham Fund is a not-for-profit fundraising and educational organization dedicated to enhancing coexistence between Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens. The Fund supports grassroots coexistence projects that bring Jews and Arabs together to learn about one another and break down destructive stereotypes. In the last six years alone, The Abraham Fund has granted more than $6 million to 400 different projects across Israel in education, social services, economic development, and the arts, thus touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis. One in every five Israelis is an Arab citizen. Fully half of these one million people are under the age of eighteen. "Israeli Arabs" are what they called themselves ten years ago. Today, in keeping with the Palestinization of the region, they call themselves "Palestinian Israelis." Deepening and expanding Israeli democracy mandates that the majority come to understand and accept coexistence as a profoundly Jewish value. This involves learning about and meeting with the minority. It also entails education for enhanced responsibilities by the minorities. The acceptance of coexistence as a basic item on Israel's national agenda can assure that both majority and minority feel they are part of a society whose future is brighter and more secure because of their mutual acceptance of each other. Contact Information: The Abraham Fund 477 Madison Avenue, 4th Floor New York, NY   10022 USA Telephone: (212) 303-9421   Fax: (212) 935-1834 Email: info@abrahamfund.org Third World Newsreel http://www.twn.org/ http://www.twn.org/about.html Third World Newsreel (TWN) is an alternative media arts organization that fosters the creation, appreciation and dissemination of independent film and video by and about people of color. It supports the innovative work of diverse forms and genres made by artists who are intimately connected to their subjects through common bonds of ethnic/cultural heritage, class position, gender, sexual orientation and political identification. TWN promotes the self- representation of traditionally marginalized groups as well as the negotiated representation of those groups by artists who work in solidarity with them. Ultimately, whether documentary, experimental, narrative, traditional or non-traditional, the importance of the media promoted by the organization is its ability to effect social change, to encourage people to think critically about their lives and the lives of others, and to propel people into action. For 30 years, Third World Newsreel has been the foremost distributor of films and videos by People of Color in America and by Third World and Indigenous people throughout the world. Third World Newsreel distributes almost 300 films and videos from the African, Asian, Latino, Palestinian, and Native American diasporas. Notable Feature(s): Training and workshop collaborations; possibilities for fiscal sponsorship, production, technical and exhibition support for individual producers and cultural workers. Contact Information: Third World Newsreel 545 Eighth Avenue, 10th Floor New York, NY   10018 USA Telephone: 212.947.9277   Fax: 212.594.6417 Email: twn@twn.org TIPinAsia http://www.tipinasia.info/index.php?l=en http://www.tipinasia.info/KH/index.php?l=en TipInAsia.info is the Anti-Trafficking in Persons in Asia Web Portal launched in June 2005 and sponsored by the Asia Foundation, a partner in expanding women's rights and opportunities in Asia since 1954. This is the first Asia-wide, multilingual Web portal to facilitate more effective regional and cross-border collaboration to prevent trafficking in persons (TIP), protect victims, and bring traffickers to justice. TIPinAsia.info provides critical information for both trafficking survivors and anti-trafficking workers, including contact information for victim service providers, case studies, research and reports, and current legal codes. With local language content currently from Thailand, Cambodia, and East Timor, and more to come from seven additional countries, TIPinAsia.info overcomes the communications barrier that has impeded regional counter-trafficking efforts in the past. Notable Feature(s): News; Discussion Forum; Case Studies; Documents center with best practices, regional action plans. Contact Information: Email: webmaster@tipinasia.info Tolerance.org http://www.tolerance.org/ The mission of Tolerance.org is to create a national community committed to human rights. Its goal is to awaken people of all ages to the problem of hate and intolerance, to equip them with the best tolerance ideas and to prompt them to act in their homes, schools, businesses and communities. Tolerance.org is a Web project of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a national non-profit civil rights organization that promotes tolerance and diversity and combats hate and discrimination through education, investigation and litigation. Contact Information: The Southern Poverty Law Center 400 Washington Ave. Montgomery, AL   36104 USA Telephone: 334.956.8200   Fax: 334.956.8488 Torture Abolition & Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC) http://www.tassc.org/ Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC) is the only organization founded by and for survivors of torture currently representing more than 50 countries and ethnic groups. It was established in 1998 on the guiding principles that torture is a crime against humanity and that survivors are the strongest and most effective voice in the campaign to end the practice of torture. The mission of TASSC International is to end the practice of torture wherever it occurs. TASSC International operates independently of any political ideology, government, or economic interest. Notable Feature(s): TASSC projects; speakers; facts about torture around the world. Contact Information: Sister Dianna Ortiz TASSC International P.O. Box 29150 4121 Harewood Road, NE Washington, D.C.   20017 USA Telephone: 202.529.2991   Fax: 202.529.8334 Email: diortiz@tassc.org UN Committee, Under Pressure, Limits Rights Groups - June 22, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/062299un-human-rights.html A New York Times article outlines recent actions by the United Nations that are likely to affect human rights protections around the world. Led by a small group of developing nations, a U.N. committee has inflicted major setbacks in recent days on human rights groups that seek to expose and combat political oppression. Contact Information: Email: info@nytimes.com UN Fact Sheet: The Rights of Indigenous Peoples http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu6/2/fs9.htm http://www.unhchr.ch/ Here is a description of the program of activities for the international decade (1994-2004) of the world's indigenous people. UN Human Rights System – 1997 http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord1997/ For the Record has proven to be an invaluable resource that serves as a reference tool for those interested in the work of the UN system. It also aids in demystifying the human rights work of the UN for general users -- journalists, students, teachers, members of parliament and interested individuals. An updated report is available each year. Contact Information: Human Rights Internet 8 York Street Suite 302 Ottawa, Ontario   K1N 5S6 Canada Telephone: (1-613) 789-7407   Fax: (1-613) 789-7414 Email: hri@hri.ca United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees http://www.unhcr.ch/ Basic information about UNHCR and refugees – ordinary people who have left their homes to escape war, persecution and human rights abuse. Much of UNHCR's work is concentrated on finding solutions to the plight of refugees. Resettlement is one such solution. Notable Feature(s): UNHCR's Mission Statement; WITNESS - the latest in the award-winning "Roads to Refuge" multimedia series of documentaries; map- and text-based access to country-specific information about refugees. Contact Information: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees C.P. 2500, 1211 Geneva 2 Switzerland Telephone: +41-22-739-8111   Universal Declaration of Human Rights http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html University of Minnesota Human Rights Library http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/ The UMN site has been touted as the Internet's best and most complete source for human rights information, services, and education. Notable Feature(s): Complete source for the full text of global treaties, declarations, resolutions, opinions, and decisions from international tribunals and treaty bodies; bibliographies; links. Contact Information: Professor David Weissbrodt Human Rights Center University of Minnesota 229-19th Avenue South Minneapolis, MN   55455 USA Telephone: 612.625.5027   Fax: 612.625.2011 Email: humanrts@gold.tc.umn.edu Valencia Third Millennium Foundation http://www.valenciatercermilenio.org/ This site presents The Declaration of Responsibilities and Human Duties from the Valencia Third Millennium Foundation project. This document, completed in Valencia, Spain, in 1998, represents the end result of three meetings presided over by the Honorable Judge Richard J. Goldstone and organized by the Valencia Third Millennium Foundation. This achievement reflects the influential presence of more than one hundred intellectuals, lawyers, politicians and philosophers. After its approval in Valencia, it was presented to the UNESCO, the first step before its presentation at the United Nations. The Declaration of Responsibilities and Human Duties receives support from distinguished individuals all over the world: His Holiness Pope John Paul II; President of Spain, José María Aznar; High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations, Mary Robinson; and intellectual minds such as Norberto Bobbio, Arthur Miller and Sir Peter Ustinov. Notable Feature(s): Complete text of the declaration in English, Spanish, and French. Contact Information: Rosa María Rodríguez Magda, Cultural Director Valencia Third Millennium Foundation Fundación Valencia Tercer Milenio Arzobispo Mayoral, 14-1ª 46002 Valencia España Telephone: (34) 96.391.35.54   Fax: (34) 96.392.07.66 Email: tercermilenio@valenciatercermilenio.org Vera Institute of Justice http://www.vera.org/ The Vera Institute of Justice works closely with leaders in government and civil society to improve the services people rely on for safety and justice. Vera develops innovative, affordable programs that often grow into self-sustaining organizations, studies social problems and current responses, and provides practical advice and assistance to government officials in New York and around the world. Vera's staff are leading more than two dozen separate projects that each aim to reveal more about the meaning of justice even as they make a difference in the lives of individuals. Those projects include efforts to improve school safety, reduce violence against women, help men in prison prepare to return home, strengthen police-community relations, and more. Each Vera project begins in the same way: empirical investigation of how some part of the justice system really works. Sometimes that exploration inspires design of a practical experiment; in other cases, Vera brings officials together with their peers and constituents to plot a rational course for reform. Whatever path a project takes, Vera aims to help government partners achieve measurable improvements in the quality of justice they deliver and share what they've learned with people around the world. Notable Feature(s): Valuable newsletter, Just 'Cause; extensive collection of program descriptions and results, national and international, e.g., Monitoring Justice Reform in Chile; Center for Justice Assistance in Moscow; Affirm: Reinforcing Positive Student Behavior for Safer Schools; Serving the Needs of Victims; Safe Return Initiative for Prisoners Released from Prison. Contact Information: Vera Institute of Justice 233 Broadway, 12th Floor New York, NY   10279 USA Telephone: 212.334.1300   Fax: 212.941.9407 Email: info@vera.org Water as a Human Right? - by John Scanlon, Angela Cassar, and Noémi Nemes http://www.iucn.org/themes/law/pdfdocuments/EPLP51EN.pdf http://www.iucn.org/themes/law/ The call to declare water a human right has been growing over the years. Until now, the content and scope of a right to water has not been clearly defined in international law and has not been explicitly recognised as a fundamental human right. Formally establishing water as a human right could encourage the international community and governments to enhance their efforts to satisfy basic human needs and to thereby meet the Millennium Development Goals. Contact Information: Water & Nature Initiative IUCN - The World Conservation Union Telephone: +41.22.9990251   Fax: +41.22.9990025 Email: ELB@hq.iucn.org WITNESS - See It. Film It. Change It. http://www.witness.org/ WITNESS is an international human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns. Beyond providing video cameras and editing equipment, WITNESS is committed to facilitating exposure for its partners' issues on a global scale. The organization helps broker relationships with international media outlets, government officials, policymakers, activists, and the general public so that once a video is made, it can be used as a tool to advocate for change. The WITNESS Partner Network consists of human rights defenders and nongovernmental organizations working on a broad range of human rights issues, including civil, political, cultural, economic and social rights. Since its inception, WITNESS has partnered with over 250 organizations devoted to such issues as atrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala, sexual abuse of women and girls during Sierra Leone's civil war, the plight of internally displaced persons in Burma, and sweatshops on U.S. soil. Notable Feature(s): Article on WITNESS's evolution and impact; Video in Action: WITNESS Case Studies; WITNESS Newsletters; video training initiatives, manuals, and other resources. Contact Information: Gillian Caldwell WITNESS 80 Hanson Place, 5th Floor Brooklyn, NY   11217 USA Telephone: 718.783.2000   Fax: 718.783.1593 Email: witness@witness.org Women's Human Rights Resources http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/Diana/ The Bora Laskin Law Library is an extremely valuable gateway site for law review articles and international resources of importance to women and their human rights. Notable Feature(s): Articles: annotated bibliographic references to scholarly articles with links to full text where available Documents: annotated references to conventions and UN Reports, NGO reports, case law and legislation with links to full text where available Links to other websites with annotations Contact Information: Email: whrr.law@utoronto.ca Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) http://www.learningpartnership.org/WLP/ Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) is an international, non-governmental organization (NGO) that empowers women and girls in the Global South to re-imagine and re-structure their roles in their families, communities, and societies. WLP achieves this goal through providing leadership training, supporting capacity building, and helping women generate and receive information and knowledge. WLP conducts all of its work in collaboration with partner organizations located in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and with members of an international network of experts. Notable Feature(s): Bibliographies on women and leadership, women's human rights and violence against women; Facts and Figures, statistics on the measure of women's status globally; directory of international, national, and family legislation that men and women can use to seek protection for their rights and to hold governments accountable. Contact Information: Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) 4343 Montgomery Avenue, Suite 201 Bethesda, MD   20814 USA Telephone: 301.654.2774   Fax: 301.654.2775 Email: wlp@learningpartnership.org World Justice Information Network http://www.justinfo.net/ Contact Information: Jeremy Travis, Director National Institute of Justice 810 Seventh St., NW Washington, DC   20531 USA Telephone: 202.307.2942   Fax: 202.307.6394 World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) http://www.omct.org/ OMCT is today the largest international coalition of NGOs fighting against torture,summary executions, forced disappearances and all other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in order to preserve Human Rights. It has at its disposal a network, SOS Torture, consisting of some 240 non-governmental organisations which act as sources of information. Its urgent interventions reach daily more than 90,000 governmental and intergovernmental institutions, non-governmental associations, pressure and interest groups. OMCT oversees a number of initiatives, including the creation of a programme on development and economic, social and cultural rights comes from the observation that a strategy to eliminate torture and its causes requires, among other, to tackle the economic, social and cultural environment in which the acts of torture take place. As reiterated by the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, human rights are interdependent, indivisible, and interrelated. OMCT believes that a deep correlation exists between the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights, as well as the right to development, and the respect for civil and political rights, including the protection against torture. Through this programme OMCT intends to strengthen the knowledge of this link between economic, social and cultural rights and civil and political rights, and thus of the causes and reasons behind gross violations of human rights, including the perpetration of torture. This programme also aims at creating tools and strategies for action that can be taken by the United Nations and other specialized agencies, at the regional and country levels, to improve the human rights situation. Contact Information: OMCT International Secretariat PO Box 21 8, rue du Vieux-Billard CH-1211 Geneva 8 Switzerland Telephone: + 41 22 809 4939   Fax: + 41 22 809 4929 Email: omct@omct.org