About This Web Guide

Jane and Sarah here, and we'd like to welcome you to our webguide on Human Rights!
We selected the subject because it can be difficult to navigate the myriad departments and organizations responsible for upholding human rights, especially since human rights are covered at so many different levels of legislation and by so many different organizations and watch groups. The key components of this subject are legislation and enforcement, promotion (by governments as well as various organizational bodies), and education, which are treated in various ways in the resources we have provided in our web guide.

Our goal was to provide the public with a useful guide to the best governmental, inter-governmental and non-governmental human rights resources available on the Internet. These resources were selected based on their information, system and service quality and are accompanied by annotations explaining their usefulness and content (see "Criteria" for more information on our selection of resources).

The online guide we created is on human rights and the agencies that seek to protect, uphold and further human rights both at home and abroad. Because this is such a huge subject, we have broken it down into sections: Human Rights in Canada, Human Rights in the USA, Human Rights in the UK, International Human Rights & IGOs, International Human Rights NGOs and Finding Aids. In addition to providing some of the best online resources available on this subject, we've also included finding aids and a number of videos from a several of the agencies discussed in the Guide to enrich the learning experience.
  
Click the hyperlink that is provided at the end of each entry to get started!

P.S - Stay up to date on Human Rights issues locally, nationally or globally through Twitter! We've provided a couple of feeds to get you started.

Sarah Visintini & Jane Willwerth, MLIS 2013 Candidates, Dalhousie University

Criteria

Approaches Adopted for Identification of Best Websites:

We decided to adopt quality criteria similar to that employed by Wangpipatwong, Chutimaskul, and Papasratorn in their study of the quality of e-government websites in Thailand, since the purpose of this web guide was to provide the best quality sources available on Human Rights on the web (2009). Although we included inter-governmental and non-governmental sources in addition to governmental ones, we felt this criteria was still relevant as these websites all shared similar goals in terms of informing the public on human rights issues, legislation and agencies.   

Our criteria are thus as follows:
Information Quality: current, authoritative, clear and easy to understand, relevant and informative
System Quality: functional, dependable, easy to use, useful for information gathering
Service Quality: dependable and accurate service, knowledgeable in a way that inspires confidence, demonstrates willingness to help users

Works Cited

Wangpipatwong, S., Chutimaskul, W. & Papasratorn, B. (2009). Quality enhancing the 
               continued use of e-government web sites: evidence from e-citizens of Thailand.
               International Journal of Electronic Government Research 5(1). 19-35.

Human Rights in Canada

The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) 

The CHRC is the arms-length independent body responsible for administering the Canadian Human Rights Act. Its website is the best starting point for those looking to learn about how human rights law is enforced in Canada. The site provides an FAQ with plain language explanations of the Act and of how the commission works;  its "Jurisprudence" section is a one-stop shop for landmark legal decisions involving the Commission; and its "Publications" section includes its special thematic reports as well as its financial reports and its reports to Parliament. Users can keep abreast of new decisions, reports, and policies by monitoring the "What's New" section. The site also maintains an impressive list of external links related to human rights law enforcement both in Canada and around the world. While some of the links are out of date, it is nonetheless a valuable starting point for anybody looking to learn more about human rights issues.

http://www.chrc-ccdp.ca/

The Alberta Human Rights Commission

The Alberta Human Rights Commission provides a series of cases studies that show how complaints brought to the Commission are handled and resolved. Based on real complaints, the case studies are a great way for users to see how human rights legislation is used in the "real world." The case studies are organized thematically around each ground of discrimination protected under the Alberta Human Rights Act (e.g. race, gender, age, physical disability). While this makes the cases Alberta-centric, they are still valuable to anyone wanting a more practical perspective on how Canadian human rights law works. 

http://www.albertahumanrights.ab.ca/publications/case_studies.asp

The Canadian Heritage Human Rights Program

 

The Canadian Heritage Human Rights Program is responsible for promoting "the development, understanding, respect for and enjoyment of human rights in Canada." They are the body responsible for preparing Canada's mandatory reports to the United Nations. When a country ratifies a UN treaty or international covenant, it is required to submit periodic reports on how it implements the tenants of the treaty or covenant through domestic legislation. These reports can be found in the "Publications and Documents" section of the site and are one of the most valuable tools users have to see how the Government of Canada holds itself accountable to its own international human right obligations. 

http://www.pch.gc.ca/ddp-hrd/index-eng.cfm

Canadian Human Rights Tribunal

Where the CHRC acts as an enforcement arm of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal acts as its court. The Commission forwards complaints to the Tribunal when they cannot be resolved between the parties involved. The Tribunal's site provides a comprehensive list of its rules and procedures, a searchable database of cases, decisions, and rulings, and annual reports and financial statements. The CHRT also provides a "Search Help" page that features hints and strategies for searching the site efficiently. The documents available on the CHRT website are invaluable to those looking to evaluate the Canadian government's ability to live up to its international human rights obligations.

http://www.chrt-tcdp.gc.ca/NS/index-eng.asp

 The Canadian Human Rights Reporter (CHRR)

 

The CHRR is a not-for-profit publication that collates and disseminates decisions of tribunals, boards of inquiry and courts from all jurisdictions, as well as the appeals which flow from them. While the CHRR is undoubtedly the most comprehensive of all the sources listed here, it is also only available via a paid substription. However, the site's "Human Rights Primer" provides free summaries of dozens of human rights cases that provide a good introduction to the nature of the practice of human rights law in Canada.

http://www.cdn-hr-reporter.ca/

Canadian Civil Liberties Association

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is a not-for-profit advocacy organization that promotes respect for human rights in Canada. The organization's resource page includes educational materials that teach Canadians how to assert their rights when dealing with the government. The site's homepage includes a "Rights Watch" RSS feed that monitors emerging human rights issues in the news. The CCLA's site is a good starting point for users who wish to gain an understanding of the ways NGOs combat what they view as abuse of state authority.

http://www.ccla.org/

Human Rights in the USA

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

The US Commission on Civil Rights is an independent federal agency tasked with investigating and reporting to Congress on American civil rights issues. Its publication section, organized into themes, supplies all of these reports. It also includes older issues of the Civil Rights Journal, a glossy magazine written by the Commission that includes feature articles on various civil rights controveries and reviews of relevent books. The Commission provides an adequate introduction to modern human rights controveries in the United States. 

http://www.usccr.gov/

The Civil Rights Clearinghouse

The Civil Rights Clearinghouse is a web portal run by the US Commission on Civil Rights that collects civil rights-related documents from across various American federal departments responsible for enforcing civil rights law. While the site is not currently being used to its full potential, it nonetheless saves users from having to search multiple sites for information. It currently draws documents from the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, the Department of Labour, and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. 

http://www.civilrightsusa.gov/

The Department of State

The State Department is responsible for promoting human rights abroad and for submitting American Treaty Reports to the United Nations. These reports are easily available on the State Department website. The State Department is also responsible for the creation of annual human rights reports on every country in the world. The reports assess each country's adherence to treaty obligations set out by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These reports are invaluable to anybody seeking an introduction to the human rights situation in a given country. 

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/

The State Department - Humanrights.gov

Humanrights.gov is the American government's portal for human rights-related information. The site features thematic reports on a wide range of human rights issues (e.g. Trafficking in Persons, Child Labor, International Religious Freedom) which can be easily accessed by the Reports Finder, which allows users to browse reports by issue, region, or type of report. There is also a reference section that features key national and international human rights documents and a chronology of key moments in the establishment of human rights in the United States. The site provides a user-friendly interface for anybody wanting to determine what priorities the US State Department places on what rights.

http://www.humanrights.gov

The US Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division

The Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice is tasked with upholding the civil and constitutional rights of Americans. Its website's "Cases and Matters" section provides a sizeable list of cases and decrees, sorted by which section handled them (e.g. Criminal Section, Employment Litigation Section, Voting Section). The "Publications" section features booklets and brochures, newsletters, and reports. Also, the FOIA section includes an electronic reading room featuring documents frequently requested through the Freedom of Information Act. The site is an excellent first stop for those in need of case law related to human rights in the US.

 http://www.justice.gov/crt/records/

Project Diana

Project Diana is a resource for those looking for case law related to human rights but don't want to sift through the hundreds of cases provided by the US Department of Justice. A project of Yale University's law library, the site provides documents for sixteen landmark human rights cases. While its usefulness is limited by its small selection, it is  still helpful for anyone in need of an important human rights case but who may not have the time to seek one out.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/diana.asp

The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library is a massive clearinghouse with over 65,000 human rights documents. While the site is global in scope, it has a separate section devoted entirely to American human rights information. The page includes relevant legislation, reports, and historical documents, plus pages dedicated to the most recent human rights controversies, such as the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Anyone looking for virtually anything related to human rights in the United States will likely find the Human Rights Library to be one of their most important resources.

http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/us_docs.html

 The American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union is a not-for-profit organization that seeks to assist Americans in protecting their rights to free speech, association, assembly, religion, and press; to equal protection under the law; to due process; and to privacy. Their "Key Issues" section includes a lists of trending issues and topics that allows users to survey the most current human rights controversies at a glance. Additionally, the bottom quarter of the homepage provides a comprehensive index of all the areas of rights and discrimination the ACLU handles. Anybody who wants to understand the extent to which human rights impact everyday life should turn will find the breadth of the ACLU's resources invaluable.

http://www.aclu.org/

Human Rights in the UK

Directgov.uk

On this part of the Directgov website, users can learn about Human Rights Act in the United Kingdom, and what rights are protected under that law. This resource also provides information on respecting others' rights, exercising those rights - even (or perhaps, especially) if they are violated by a government official or someone like a police officer, legal advice resources, PDFs on the 1998 Human Rights Act in 10 different languages and for those with learning disabilities, as well as further resources and contacts within the government. This is a great source for understanding human rights in the United Kingdom and the legal basis for those rights. The PDF guide on the 1998 Human Rights Act is very clear and written in simple language to effectively communicate how the Human Rights Act does and explains the 16 basic rights simply but clearly.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/governmentcitizensandrights/yourrightsandresponsibilities/dg_4002951 

Where your rights come from (Directgov.uk)

Also part of the Directgov website, this page explains the various sources that form the British Constitution and the rights inherent within those sources. These sources are broken down very clearly into Statute law, Common law, and European law. This is a great source for understanding the broader context of key human rights legislation in the UK and the various bodies that affect that legislation. This source does an excellent job of explaining what could otherwise be a complicated topic and users from various backgrounds will find this accessible. Though the Directgov website does a very good job of clearly explaining issues pertaining to government and citizenship on their website, these pages on human rights are rather embedded in the website, which is another reason why we wanted to include them on our webguide - so that they could be more accessible to users seeking information on this topic.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Yourrightsandresponsibilities/Findoutaboutyourrights/DG_066931

Equality and Human Rights Commission

The Equality and Human Rights Commission works with employers, organizations, policy makers and Government to promote equality and enforce equality and human rights laws already in place. The Commission focuses on a number of "protected" grounds: age, disability, gender, race, religion/belief, pregnancy/maternity, marriage/civil partnership, sexual orientation and gender reassignment. Their website provides news updates relating to these issues in the UK, a section dedicated to understanding human rights and the current issues and related inquiries, and further sections dedicated to the projects in place to improve human rights and equality standards within the United Kingdom. Also of interest is the "Advice and Guidance" section which is an excellent resource for employers, businesses, workers and education providers on how to promote and protect their human rights and the rights of others. The "Legal and Policy" section is also a comprehensive source of information on bills, enforcement and policy in the UK with respect to human rights. Not only is this website very dynamic and engaging, but it is intuitive and extremely comprehensive without being overwhelming. This is an excellent resource for understanding human rights and equality in the UK.

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/

Equality and Human Rights Commission: Publications

The "Publications" portion of the Equality and Human Rights Commission website is incredible in its coverage and scope. Hundreds of documents, reviews, research reports and guides are made available on this website. Of particular note in this resource is the "Easy Read Publications" section, which provides inquiries, projects and reports in an easily read and understood format that renders them accessible to the general public, individuals with visual impairments and individuals that might have lower literacy levels or English language skills. In addition to being accessible, they are a great means of obtaining a snap shot view of certain issues and inquiries currently being addressed in the UK.

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/publications/ 

Equality Human Rights Commission: The First Two Years

International Human Rights and IGOs

United Nations

 The Human Rights section of the United Nations website is an excellent starting point for international human rights information. It is a central source that provides a comprehensive list of hyperlinks to various UN Bodies and Offices related to human rights issues, international tribunals and resources, and breaks up human rights issues thematically to centralize information on those areas and aid in the development of knowledge in those areas. This is a great starter source to get an idea of the various bodies under the United Nations umbrella and the resources available through this inter-governmental organization.

http://www.un.org/en/rights/index.shtml

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for

Human Rights (OHCHR)

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) works to promote human rights internationally and works with countries and organizatins to ensure that human rights standards are actually implemented. The OHCHR also works with charter and treaty based human rights bodies to improve the integration of human rights standards and ensure the implementation of international human rights treaties. This is an excellent resource to begin an understanding of human rights because the language is not specialized and the "Your human rights," "Human rights issues," and "International law" sections give a broad introduction to the topic. Users can also deepen their knowledge, however, through the "Publications and resources" and "Countries" sections, or through the Related Links provided. The site's "News and events" is extremely current and enables the user to stay up to date on the UN's involvement in human rights issues globally.

http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Pages/WelcomePage.aspx

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

on the year 2011 and what it has meant for human rights.

International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent, treaty based international court of its kind.  This indendant organization was conceived on July 17,1998 and finally entered into force July 1, 2002 after being ratified by 60 nation states. The Court was intended as an international organizational body capable of investigating, arresting and trying war criminals for their crimes, and its creation was an extremely important step for the protection of Human Rights internationally. Its website provides a detailed history of the establishment of the Court, its legal jurisdiction, structure and processes, as well as its annual reports and weekly updates. Of particular interest are the "Situations and Cases" and "Legal Texts and Tools" sections. In the "Situtation and Cases" section the situations brought before the Court are described  and provided with a map of the territory in question, photographs of the individuals that stand accused, their alleged crimes and a timeline of the important dates of their trials. The "Legal Texts and Tools" section is also very useful as it provides links to legal documents pertaining to the Court and the ICC Legal Tools database to supply users with the legal information and documents necessary to understand the core international crimes cases. This website is essential for understanding how the International Criminal Court operates, the extent of its power and influence and how it continues to investigate and bring to justice violations of human rights and war crimes. Though it does use legal terminology freely, the language is still easy to understand and the website is clearly laid out and easy to use.

http://www.icc-cpi.int/Menus/ICC

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10th, 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is considered by many to be the foundation upon which international human rights law has been built. It is therefore an extremely important document to understanding human rights in its global context, and is provided in full text by this UN source. Not only does this site provide all 30 articles of Universal Declaration of Human Rights in full text, but it also details a brief history of the UN General Assembly's adoption of this document, its relation to international human rights law, a summary of the universal values of this document and the photographs and names of the drafting committee that created it.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

International Law (OHCHR)

The International Law page of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights website is an excellent resource for accessing primary soures. It contains a very comprehensive list of international human rights treaties and their corresponding monitoring bodies, universal instruments (declarations, principles, guidelines and recommendations in various stages of ratification by different states - information which is also available on the page) relating to human rights; and all of these documents are available as PDF documents for direct consulting. Though this is an excellent resource in terms of locating the primary documents relating to this field, the language is a little dense within these documents and beginners might have difficulty understanding it at first. If this is the case, we recommend visiting either the Universal Declaration of Human Rights page discussed above, or the ICRC "War & Law" page discussed in our NGOs section. The ICRC's information complements the treaties and conventions on this UN page by providing brief explanations on the various aspects of international human rights law (such as how a treaty is ratified, for example).

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/

A Video on the International Bill of Human Rights and its Covenants

International Human Rights NGOs

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an independant organization made up of members from over 150 countries, that is working to assure human rights standards for all. Their website provides information on human rights issues by country, topic and through various campaigns. Under "Canada" are reports on Canada's human rights issues from 2007 to 2011 as well as news publications pertaining to human rights issues in Canada dating back to 1991. The 2011 report on Canada, for example, treats the legislation that passed and bills that were proposed over the past year, and also discusses various concerns in Canada, particularly in the areas of indigenous peoples' rights, women's rights, counter-terror and security, refugees and policing and justice. In addition, their website features a document database that contains more than 50,000 reports, press releases and appeals for action from countries all over the world. This is a very user friendly website that also acts as an excellent tool to monitor human rights issues in the world news or alternatively to narrow in on specific countries.

http://www.amnesty.org/

Looking Back on Amnesty International 2011

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is another non-governmental organization that acts as a watch dog for human rights on a global scale. Their members document and investigate abuses by interviewing witnesses and victims as they occur, in an attempt to curtail violences and injustices perpetrated against others, give the victims a voice and to hold oppressors accountable. Their website is available in over nine languages and provides news releases, editorials by staff members, letters addressed to governments and organizations, and more than 150 reports created by HRW to address human rights concerns and emergencies all over the world. Their "Publications" section is extremely informative as it provides not only the reports mentioned earlier, but a section on methodology, the 2011 and earlier World Report and the chilling "2010 in Photos" which provides photographs from Burma, Kyrgyztan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait and the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army among many others. This website's multimedia section is also quite extensive, featuring videos, audio clips, audio slideshows, photo essays and podcasts to increase awareness on the many human rights issues that their members have witnessed and documented internationally. This organization produces masses of information and presents it in very accessible ways - online, in print or through multimedia, and because of the journalistic nature of their organization, the information is itself very readable and easy to understand.

 http://www.hrw.org/

Human Rights Eyewitnesses

The International Committee of the Red Cross

The International Committee of the Red Cross is an independant organization that provides humanitarian aid for victims of war and promotes the respect of both international and national humanitarian law. The ICRC website provides a comprehensive "War & Law" section, where it provides information on treaties and customary and domestic law, as well as explanations on the rules of warfare, weaponry and specific topics like security detention or the difference between a refugee and an internally displaced person (ICP). This section is very clearly laid out and uses clear, jargon free language that makes it easy to absorb the wealth of information available. In addition to this extremely helpful section is the "Resource centre," which contains international reviews and annual reports, publications, photos, films and maps, as well as access to the ICRC Archives which can be used to locate individuals from 20th century conflicts among other things, and International Humanitarian Law databases. This resource is extremely comprehensive and very easy to navigate and understand. It is an excellent starting point resource for learning about war and humanitarian law, but is also comprehensive enough to support deeper research and information needs.

http://www.icrc.org/

ICRC Annual Report: Reflections on 2010

Human Rights Finding Aids

HURIDOCS

HURIDOCS is an NGO committed to making human rights information more accessible to advocates. To this end, they have created the HURISearch search engine, which crawls over 5000 human rights related websites. Users can limit their searches to NGOs, academic institutions, national human rights institutions, or intergovernmental organizations. Its advanced search options include limiting a search to sites from a particular country or to a particular document format. HURISearch is a great starting point for research as it provides the user to get an instant idea of how much information is available on their topic of choice.

http://www.hurisearch.org/

Department of Justice - Laws Search

The Canadian Department of Justice's Laws Search allows users to conduct "Google-style" searches for legislation. Rather than having to deal with the complicated interfaces typical of legislative websites, users can simply input keywords or an excerpt from a law's title to call up relevent results. Users can use broad (e.g. "human rights") or specific (e.g. "sexual orientation") terms to find legislation, and can limit their results to certain types of laws or by law title.

 http://laws.justice.gc.ca/Search/

 Women's Human Rights Resources Database

The Women's Human Rights Resources Database is a searchable database of documents related to women's rights law. Users can either search the whole database, or limit their search to a particular subject (e.g. marriage, armed conflict, race and gender). Each subject also has its own information page explaining the concept and offers selected articles, documents, and links for the user to browse, making it a fantastic starting point for beginning users. The site also allows users to browse for items by author, making it equally useful for more advanced users who are familiar with women's rights theorists. 

http://simplifyurl.com/999v

UN Guide to Human Rights Research

This guide, produced by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, is a comprehensive introduction to the concept of human rights and what United Nations bodies are responsible for enforcing them. It also provides plenty of information on the availability of documents, both online and off. The site also highlights the UN Bibliographic Information System thesaurus, which can be used by searchers to find appropriate search terms to return better results. The guide is a helpful resource for anyone trying to navigate the complicated United Nations system.

http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/spechr.htm

UN InfoQuest (UN-I-QUE)

UN-I-QUE, also produced by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, is a Google-style search engine that provides easy access to UN materials. It focuses on recurrent documents, such as annual reports, conference reports, and statements in the General Debate. Documents are often not the most current, but because the database goes back to 1946 it is an excellent starting point when trying to locate historical UN documents.

http://lib-unique.un.org/lib/unique.nsf