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Resources on Human Rights
This database is maintained by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) and is one of many resources available at our Resource Center.
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| Source | Title | Item Type | Description | URL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights | OHCHR Databases | Databases | The UN agency links to information and document repositories covering discrimination, human rights education and training, jurisprudence, status of ratification of human rights treaties, and databases for Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), Universal Human Rights Index, UN Charter Body Database, etc. Information is also searchable by region, country, oversight body and keywords. | http://www.ohchr.org/EN/PublicationsResources/Pages/databases.aspx |
| UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals | Documents | Database; Information | The Judicial Records and Archives Database provides access to all MICT public judicial records and archival records of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Records, including the latest filings, include petitions from parties and non-parties to trials; exhibits tendered in court; transcripts and audiovisual recordings of court hearings. Databases for the Arusha Branch and The Hague Branch are also available. | https://www.irmct.org/en/documents |
| Amnesty International | Country List | Information | The UK-based non-governmental organization specializes in research and campaigning and makes available statistics, reports and commentary on human rights in dozens of countries and on subjects including armed conflict, arms control, corporate accountability, death penalty, detention, disappearances, discrimination, freedom of expression, Indigenous peoples, international justice, living in dignity, and people on the move. Publications can be accessed in multiple languages. Find its toolkits and guides here: https://www.amnestyusa.org/tools-and-reports/ | https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/ |
| Human Rights Watch | Homepage | Information; Expert Sources | The New York-based non-governmental research and advocacy organization reports on human rights conditions in dozens of countries. Reports are searchable by country and focus areas that include Arms (cluster munitions, explosive weapons in civilian areas, incendiary weapons, killer robots, landmines); Business (extractive industries, World Bank, IMF); Children's Rights (child labor, child soldiers, education, juvenile justice, orphans and abandoned children, refugees and migrants); Disability Rights; Environment; Free Speech (Internet, press, religious); Health (attacks on health, detention centers, disasters and displaced populations, health care access, HIV/TB, palliative care, sexual and reproductive health); International Justice; LGBT Rights; Migrants; Refugee (asylum seekers, internally displaced people); terrorism/counterterrorism; Torture; Women's Rights (child marriage, domestic domestic workers, family and legal status, reproductive and maternal health, sexual violence, armed conflict). Materials are available in multiple languages and expert sources are searchable by region/country and topic here: https://www.hrw.org/about/people | https://www.hrw.org/ |
| Human Rights Library of the University of Minnesota | Regional Material | Information; Sources | The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library provides resources and links for regional governmental and non-governmental human rights organizations. Resources for researching specific country conditions available here: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/research/ | http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/regional.htm |
| Business & Human Rights Resource Centre | Homepage | Information; Expert Sources | The London-based non-governmental research and advocacy organization specializes in corporate abuse of human rights. The group has 14 regional researchers based in Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Japan, Myanmar, Mexico, Senegal, South Africa, UK, Ukraine and United States and tracks the human rights policy and performance of over 10,000 companies in over hundreds of countries. Search by topic, company name or issues including modern slavery, corporate legal accountability, climate justice, human rights defenders, major sporting events, Chinese investment overseas, natural resources and tax avoidance. | http://business-humanrights.org/ |
| Physicians for Human Rights | Resource Library | Information; Expert Sources | The US-based non-governmental organization relies on medical and scientific expertise and methods to conduct investigations of human rights violations and issue findings. Focus areas include torture, sexual violence, attacks on civilians, use of force during civil unrest, and protection of medical institutions and health professionals in crisis zones. A list of expert sources is available here: http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/about/experts/ | http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/ |
| Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor by the US State Department | Reports | Information | Official US government reports and statements. The US State Department publishes annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, International Religious Freedom Report and Trafficking in Persons Report, and the US Labor Department's Worst Forms of Child Labor report. The U.S. State Department also has an office that covers global crime related to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. | https://www.state.gov/reports-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/ |
| Legal Tools Database by the International Criminal Court (ICC) | Legal Tools Database | Information; Database | The ICC library includes documents on human rights and criminal cases and decisions, fact-finding mandates, national legislation and cases and international legal instruments. The documents are organized by country and may be available in multiple languages. | http://www.legal-tools.org/ |
| UN Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights | UN Human Rights and NHRIs | Information; Sources | The International Coordinating Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights provides a list of and resources for national human rights institutions by themes, including Business and Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Persons with Disabilities, Prevention of Torture; Rights of the Child; Women's Rights; Enforced Disappearances; Racial Discrimination; LGBT; Ageing; and National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs) in Portuguese speaking countries. | https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/nhri |
| Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions | Homepage | Information; Sources | The informal organization provides information on the history, function and contact information for formal national human rights institutions and other national accountability mechanisms with human rights mandates, searchable by country. | http://cfnhri.org/ |
| Freedom House | Reports | Information, Reports | The watchdog organization authors global reports that grade countries on civil liberties, freedom of the press, freedom of internet, etc. Find country-specific reports, updates, news and programs by going to the Regions section. | https://freedomhouse.org/reports |
| The Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA) | Homepage | Information; Expert sources | The California-based non-governmental organization litigates and advocates on issues of arbitrary detention, crimes against humanity, forced disappearance, sexual and gender-based violence, genocide, summary execution, torture, war crimes. Current work and cases in Argentina, Bosnia, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Syria, Liberia, Peru, Somalia, Sri Lanka, The Gambia, and the United States. | http://cja.org/ |
| Genocide Studies Program at Yale University | Resource Databases | Resources; Databases | The Genocide Studies Program at Yale University’s MacMillan Center conducts "research, seminars and conferences on comparative, interdisciplinary, and policy issues relating to the phenomenon of genocide, and has provided training to researchers from afflicted regions, including Cambodia, Rwanda, and East Timor. The GSP also maintains research projects on those catastrophes, on the Nazi Holocaust, the genocides in Bosnia and Darfur, and on colonial and indigenous genocides." | https://gsp.yale.edu/resources/databases |
| American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) | Resources | Reports | The Science and Human Rights Coalition at AAAS have produced a number of resources "including an annotated bibliography of science and human rights, guidelines for scientists working on human rights projects, examples of collaborations between scientists and human rights organizations, a primer on scientific freedom and human rights, and more. The resources are organized below by topic." | https://www.aaas.org/programs/science-and-human-rights-coalition/resources |
| Harvard Kennedy School, Library and Research services | Human Rights | Data; Publications; Resources | Publications and resources on Human Rights collected by the Harvard University Library. | https://guides.library.harvard.edu/hks/human_rights |
| New York University Libraries | Human Rights | Publications; Resources | NYU's libraries have collected a number of organizations that provide international and US data on human rights. | https://guides.nyu.edu/humanrightsdata |
| Council of Europe | Data Sources | Reports, Handbooks | The Council of Europe has a number of publications on issues such as: child protection, migration, law, organized crime, human rights. The website also includes landmark judgments of the European Court of Human Rights | https://edoc.coe.int/en/ |
| International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) | Africa | Litigation; Reports | FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights) is an international human rights NGO federating 188 organisations from 117 countries. The website also contains reports divided by region and cases of litigation against countries, companies and individuals. | https://www.fidh.org/en/region/Africa/ |
| European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) | Annual Activity Report | Reports, databases | The FRA conducts research and collects data exploring inequality in different areas of life in the EU. It collects and analyse law and data. It identifies trends by collecting and analysing comparable data, and helps better law making and implementation. It maintains a series of databases. For example, the criminal detention database, the anti-muslim hatred database, and data on equality. | https://fra.europa.eu/en/about-fra/what-we-do/annual-activity-programme |
| Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria | Publications | University Publication, Guides, Reports | Multiple guides and publications on human rights issues in the African continent by the University of Pretoria. Some examples: the guide to the African Human Rights System, African Disability Rights Yearbook, the AfricLaw blog. Also available in French, Swahili, and Portuguese. | https://www.chr.up.ac.za/publications |
| Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) | Resources | Resources | The AHRC is an independent, non-governmental body with various resources on human rights issues in Asian countries. This includes books, journals, human rights reports, and news filtered by country. | http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/ |
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