Human Rights

International Instruments (Conventions, Treaties, Protocols, etc.)

• International Human Rights Instruments (from the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights)
• Basic Documents Pertaining to Human Rights in the Inter-American System (from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights)
• Basic Texts of the European Court of Human Rights (from the Council of Europe)
• Human Rights Treaties (from the Council of Europe)
• International Instruments from Refworld (from the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees)
• Human Rights Treaties and Other Instruments (from the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library)

IGOs

• United Nations Home Page: Click on ‘UN Documents’ for many full-text UN documents: resolutions, decisions and more organized by organ. Primarily recent materials. Click on ‘international law’ for international criminal court links.
  • UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: Great site for full-text UN/human rights documents. Click on ‘Databases/Documents’ on the left side of the page to get to the exellent ‘Treaty Bodies Database’ and ‘Charter-Based Bodies Database’. There you can search for UN/human rights documents by country, subject, symbol and more.
  • UN High Commissioner for Refugees: Asylum laws and case law of most countries and many other documents.  Includes access to the web version of the RefWorld database.
  • UN Human Rights Organizational Structure.  Includes a chart illustrating the relationship between the various UN human rights bodies.
  • UN Treaty Collection: Access to two UN treaty databases. [Harvard only]
  • UN Documentation: Research Guide–Special Topic–Human Rights. Excellent guide to UN human rights research. Links to all major UN human rights bodies, and explains the documentation system of each.
  • For the Record: The UN Human Rights System: Produced by HRI and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, this report summarizes the work of the United Nations on human rights issues by year. For each country, it provides links to and background information about relevant UN human rights documents.
• Council of Europe Portal : Includes texts of COE treaties, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.
  • Commissioner for Human Rights:  Elected by the Parliamentary Assembly. This website provides information, and in the “Documents” section there are useful opinions and reports.
• Human Rights Web: Provides links to the various parts of the Council of Europe Human Rights structure:
  • Directorate General of Human Rights:  Organized by convention, this website provides links to various conventions and information about Directorate’s activities.
    • European Social Charter: Website provides national reports, collective complaints and information.
    • Committee for the Prevention of Torture: Has developed a database of all reports and statements.
    • Protection of National Minorities: Includes treaty information like status and reservations, state reports and reports of the committee.
    • Commission against Racism and Intolerance: Includes information about member country practice and reports on state parties.
• European Court of Human Rights: Official homepage of the court. Includes HUDOC a database of judgments and more. Also includes information on court activities and basic texts.

• The Organization of American States: Find OAS treaties, resolutions, conventions and declarations in the ‘documents’ section. For human rights information click ‘specialized areas’ and then ‘human rights’.
  • Inter-American Commission on Human Rights: Official site. Includes recent, full-text Commission annual reports and country reports as well as other basic documents.
  • Inter-American Court of Human Rights: Official site. Includes some court jurisprudence (including very recent judgments) in Spanish, and sometimes English.
  • Inter-American Human Rights Database at American University: AU’s Washington College of Law’s database. Includes links to Inter-American Commission on Human Rights documents since its first session in 1960. Some document links are to the OAS site, and some are to AU.
  • Inter-American Human Rights System at the University of Minnesota. Part of the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Library. Includes links to many Court and Commission documents. Some document links are to the OAS site, and some are to the Univesrity of Minnesota.

• Organization of African Unity:
  • African Commission on Human and People’s Rights: From the University of Minnesota’s Human Rights Library.

Governments

• Argentina: Subsecretary of Human Rights (from the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights): Includes a normative and factual database. The normative database includes laws from the national and provincial level, and access to jurisprudence and reports.  The factual database includes reports on the development of human rights in Argentina from 1995-present.
• Argentina: Defensor del Pueblo (official website)
• Australia: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (from Australia): information about commission, legislation, complaints.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman (offical website)
• Brazil: Secretário de Estado dos Direitos Humanos (official website): Coordinates several Brazilian government offices concerned with human rights.
• Canada: Human Rights Commission/Commission Canadienne des Droits de la Personne (official website): Includes text of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the text of the Commission’s Annual Report, and more.
  • Provincial Human Rights Commissions
• Canada: Human Rights Tribunal (official website)
• Columbia: Defensoría del Pueblo de Columbia (official website)
• Guatemala: Oficina de la Alta Comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos (from OHCHR)
• Honduras: Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos de Honduras (official website)
• India: National Human Rights Commission (official website): Information about cases, reports by Commission, Protection of Human Rights Act, and information about state human rights commissions.
• Ireland: The Office of the Ombudsman (official website)
• Latin America: Procesos Jurisdiccionales Internos para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos (from Comisión Andina de Juristas): Includes Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
• Mexico: Comision Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (official website)
• Peru: Defensoría del Pueblo de Peru (official website)
• South Africa: Truth and Reconciliation Commission(official website)
• United Kingdom: Human Rights Policy Department (from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom): includes annual reports.
• United Kingdom: Human Rights Unit (UK Department of Constitutional Affairs).
• United States: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices (from the State Department): Includes links to reports from 1993 through the most current issues.
• Venezuela: Defensoría del Pueblo de Venezuela (official website)

NGOs

• Amnesty International (from AI): Includes annual reports and country reports as well as general information about the organization.
• Human Rights Watch (from HRW): Includes news and full-text of their recent World Reports and country reports. For information on a country, click on ‘Recent Publications’ and then the country to get to a list of links to both World Report sections on that country and other reports.
• Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (from LCHR): Includes news and lawyer network.
• International Committee of the Red Cross (from ICRC): Includes many reports by country and issue. Full-text of the International Review of the Red Cross since 1995.
• Other NGOs (from the University of Minnesota Human Rights Library): comprehensive guide to NGOs
• Locating and Contacting NGOs

Guides

• ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law:  Human Rights.  Marci Hoffman’s guide to human rights is an excellent starting point for human rights research.  It is updated frequently.
• Getting Started in Human Rights Research: On-Line and Off-Line Resources. From the Harvard Human Rights Program.
• Guide to Human Rights Research. A print guide written by Jack Tobin and Jennifer Green (1994) from the Harvard Human Rights Program.

Other Sources of Human Rights Documents and Guides by Subject

General

• Lexis Nexis Human Rights Cases available through the filename HRIGHT covers summaries and transcripts of decisions of the European Court of Human Rights from 1960, and Butterworths Human Rights Cases from 1996,
  covering landmark decisions from international, European and English courts and tribunals from 1960 through current.
• Australian Human Rights Information Centre: Texts of various recent human rights documents, including texts of UN Human Rights Committee decisions.
• Columbia University:  Human & Constitutional Rights Resource Page.  Includes links to country reports, regional, international and national resources.  Although still under construction, their ‘Bills of Right Comparative Law Materials’ database should eventually provide access to constitutional law cases from jurisdictions around the world.
• Derechos.  A human rights organization for Latin America.  Includes news, links, and an internet human rights journal.
• DIANA (University of Cincinnati Law School): Electronic human rights texts, bibliographies, etc., organized by country or region. Includes documents from the Organization for African Unity.
• FinDoc (from the Abo Adademi University Institute for Human Rights): A bibliographic database of human rights literature located in Finland.  Includes international documents and national documents.
• Harvard Law School Human Rights Program: Includes full-text of their “Guide to Human Rights Research,” as well as conference, seminar and lecture publications.
• Human Rights Internet (HRI): Collections of human rights documents, bibliographies, publications and web links. Great human rights internet directory.
• The Institute for Global Communications: Access to PeaceNet, EcoNet, ConflictNet, LaborNet, WomensNet, etc. Great for finding out about news around the world, and about smaller NGOs.
• Raoul Wallenberg Institute: Includes some RWI publications in full text.
• University of Minnesota Human Rights Library: A DIANA site. Great for documents from the UN Human Rights Commission (annotated lists). Decisions from the Inter-American Commission.

Children’s Rights

• Children’s Rights Information Network
  The Child Rights Information Network (CRIN) is a global network that disseminates information about the Convention on the Rights of the Child and child rights amongst non-governmental organisations (NGOs), United Nations agencies, inter-governmental organisation (IGOs), educational institutions, and other child rights experts. The Coordinating Unit is based in London, UK. Includes regional and thematic groupings, research papers and more.
• UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund official website.
• Human Rights Watch Children’s Page .
• Committee on the Rights of the Child UN Monitoring body for the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• Children’s Rights U.S. based non-profit.
• Human Rights Internet Children’s Page .
• Amnesty International Children’s Page

Rights of Persons with Disabilities

• UN Enable Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities.
• Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons G.A. res. 3447 (XXX), 30 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 34) at 88, U.N. Doc. A/10034 (1975). (Minnesota Human Rights Library). Also on the UNHCHR website.
• United Nations Working Group on Disability Rights Convention
• Disability Rights Education and Defence Fund.

Development

Linkages: Homepage of the International Institute for Sustainable Development. Information and documents on population, women’s and environmental issues.

Gay Rights

• International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission: Includes news and resources for various countries, an asylum program, action alerts and other information.
• International Gay and Lesbian Association: Includes a World Legal Survey, news, reports from various countries and a European branch with information specific to Europe.
• Rechtskommittee LAMBDA: Austrian legal committee for the protection of gay and lesbian rights.
• Sexuality, Gender, and the Law: National and International (from the University of Chicago School of Law): Excellent collection of information on web-based and print resources.
• Queer Resources Directory: Excellent source for information relating to gay and lesbian issues all over the world. Unofficial translations of new legislation.

Minority Rights

• Center for World Indigenous Studies: Fourth World Documentation Project: Includes full text of reports, statements, declarations and more from a variety of organizations. Includes a virtual library and a list of web links to other sites.
• European Roma Rights Center: An international initiative for the human rights of Roma (Gypsies). Includes full-text reports by country and by theme.
• International Indian Treaty Council: Includes texts of drafts and declarations from the United Nations, the OAS and more.

Women’s Rights

• Women’s Human Rights Resources: A DIANA site from the University of Toronto. Includes full-text conventions and reports from various sources and a great list of internet links on women’s human rights by subject.

Note: We linked the resources to archive.org in an effort to decrease the number of broken links cited.