A human rights group, or human rights organization, is a non-governmental organization which advocates for human rights through identification of their violation, collecting incident data, its analysis and publication, promotion of public awareness while conducting institutional advocacy, and lobbying to halt these violations. Like other NGOs, human rights groups are defined in their characteristics by legal, including taxation, constraints under which they operate, such as[1]
1. is 'non-governmental' meaning that it is established by private initiative, is free from governmental influence, and does not perform public functions.
2. has an aim that is not-for-profit, meaning that if any profits are earned by the organisation they are not distributed to its members but used in the pursuit of its objective,
3. does not use or promote violence or have clear connections with criminality, and
4. has a formal existence with a statute and a democratic and representative structure, and does normally, but not necessarily, enjoy legal personality under national law.
What distinguishes a human rights group from other political elements of any given society is that while political advocates usually seeking to protect only the rights of their own constituents, a human rights group seeks to defend the same rights for all members of that or any other society.[2] Unlike political groups which seek to advance their own discrete interests or programs a human rights group attempts to keep the political process open to all legitimate participants in the societal conflicts where such human rights violations occur. This generally independent focus distinguishes human rights groups from sectarian and partisan groups such as for example trades unions, whose primary goal is to protect the interests of the members of unions.
Human rights groups are sometimes confused with humanitarian organizations and groups representing lobbies focused on specific issue lobbies, while most seek to distinguishing themselves from political movements involved in the conflicts that are often causes of the human rights abuses. Often human rights groups claim expert knowledge on the issue or issues it surveys through human rights observers as field researchers. One of the best known international human rights groups is Amnesty International. However it, like many other groups, has stretched the definition of a human rights group because aside from not being a single-issue advocate it has also ventured into issues that are not clearly human rights.[3]
There are some governmental organisations that are also named human rights group, such as the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Rights, but which are primarily reporting groups for the purpose of policy design.
^Lindblom, Anna-Karin, Non-governmental organisations in international law, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2005, p.52
^Brett, Rachel, The Role and Limits of Human Rights NGOs at the United Nations, in, Beetham, David, Politics and human rights, The Political Studies Association, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1995, p.97
^Thomas, Clive S., Research guide to United States and international interest groups, Praeger Publishers, Westport, 2004, p.272
and 29 Related for: Human rights group information
"All victims of humanrights abuses should be able to look to the HumanRights Council as a forum and a springboard for action." — Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary-General...
International humanrights organizations, along with the United Nations, and the United States Department of State, have reported humanrights violations...
Humanrights in Indonesia are defined by the 1945 Constitution (UUD 1945) and the laws under it; several rights are guaranteed especially as a result...
Humanrights in China are periodically reviewed by international bodies, such as humanrights treaty bodies and the United Nations HumanRights Council's...
Humanrights in Cuba are under the scrutiny of humanrights organizations, which accuse the Cuban government of committing systematic humanrights abuses...
Commissioner for HumanRights (OHCHR) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat that works to promote and protect humanrights that are guaranteed...
National HumanRights Commission of India (abbreviated as NHRC) is a statutory body constituted on 12 October 1993 under the Protection of HumanRights Ordinance...
on humanrights. The group pressures governments, policymakers, companies, and individual humanrights abusers to denounce abuse and respect human rights...
The United Nations Commission on HumanRights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it...
Rights First Human Rights Foundation HumanRights Internet HumanRights Law Foundation HumanRights Watch HumanRights Without Frontiers International HURIDOCS...
prevent humanrights violations and abuses can be found in acts and laws on issues that either have a humanrights component or relate to certain groups of...
Humanrights are moral principles, or norms, for certain standards of human behaviour and are regularly protected as substantive rights in substantive...
Bahrain's record on humanrights has been described by HumanRights Watch as "dismal", and having "deteriorated sharply in the latter half of 2010". Their...
related to this article: Universal Declaration of HumanRights The Universal Declaration of HumanRights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the...
national humanrights institution (NHRI) is an independent state-based institution with the responsibility to broadly protect and promote humanrights in a...
The HumanRights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States...
Human Right Concern Eritrea, also known as HumanRights Concern–Eritrea (HRCE or HRC–E), is an Eritrean humanrights organisation based in the United Kingdom...
constitutional monarchy. The HumanRights Scores Dataverse ranked Japan somewhere in the middle among G7 countries on its humanrights performance, below Germany...
States, humanrights comprise a series of rights which are legally protected by the Constitution of the United States (particularly the Bill of Rights), state...
A humanrights defender or humanrights activist is a person who, individually or with others, acts to promote or protect humanrights. They can be journalists...
and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations and groups such as HumanRights Watch all critical of it. Amnesty International considers North...
rights of its citizens,", several international human-rightsgroups have described the state of humanrights in Oman in highly critical terms. Article 41...
Humanrights in India is an issue complicated by the country's large size and population as well as its diverse culture, despite its status as the world's...
Humanrights in Australia have largely been developed by the democratically elected Australian Parliament through laws in specific contexts (rather than...
The Palestinian HumanRights Monitoring Group (PHRMG) was a humanrightsgroup led by Bassem Eid, a former fieldworker for B'Tselem. It was active from...
HumanRights Foundation of Turkey released two reports detailing humanrights abuses including torture, ill-treatment and isolation of small groups in...
Humanrights in the Philippines are protected by the Constitution of the Philippines, to make sure that people in the Philippines are able to live peacefully...
Humanrights in Vietnam (Vietnamese: Nhân quyền tại Việt Nam) are among the poorest in the world, as considered by various domestic and international academics...
Global Information