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Wednesday November 17, 2004   
USINFO >  Publications

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

The U.S.-based Human Rights Watch is one of the many nongovernmental organizations -- both in the United States and around the world -- that have been integral to the protection of human rights. Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the founding of Helsinki Watch, which monitored compliance of European member states, the United States, and Canada with the human rights principles agreed to in the Helsinki Accords.

Today, Human Rights Watch includes five divisions covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the signatories to the Helsinki Accords. It also includes five thematic projects covering arms transfers, children's rights, free expression, prison conditions, and women's rights. It maintains offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London, Brussels, Moscow, Dushanbe, Hong Kong, and Rio de Janeiro.

The organization issues a Human Rights Watch World Report each January, presenting a detailed analysis of human rights developments in more than 70 countries. This report is supplemented by the Human Rights Watch Update, a quarterly bulletin that highlights breaking developments since the publication of the annual report. In addition, Human Rights Watch puts out some 100 reports every year about specific human rights issues.

Human Rights Watch collects the information for these and other publications through fact-finding missions, meetings with government officials, and collaborative efforts with other nongovernmental human rights organizations.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, notes that the focus of human rights reporting has shifted in the past decade from the plight of political prisoners to the victims of communal violence. To combat these new abuses, Roth says, the human rights movement must "begin supplementing its traditional international exposure of violator governments with stronger calls for economic sanctions."

Says Roth: "Much of the communal violence we see today is attributable not to age-old animosities, as common wisdom has it, but to governments that have found it politically convenient to whip up nationalist fervor to firm up their political base." But he makes it clear that it is not just governments that are the violators. Many nongovernmental, organized groups with the power to enforce their will are violators as well.

Roth stresses the importance of recruiting the business community -- "one of the largest untapped tools" -- in support of human rights. The human rights community must do more, he believes, to convince business that regimes that outlaw repression and engender respect for human rights are good for business.

By David Pitts, staff writer, United States Department of State.

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