Civil Rights

Equality Commission for Northern Ireland

The Equality Commission for Northern Ireland is an independent public body. They have three main duties: to work towards the elimination of sex discrimination; to promote equality of opportunity between women and men; and to keep the legislation under review. This is the only government appointed body in Northern Ireland with statutory power to enforce the Sex Discrimination (Northern Ireland) Order 1976 and the Equal Pay Act (Northern Ireland) 1970 as amended.

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) is a body in the Inter-American system and an organ of the Organisation of American States (OAS) which promotes and protects human rights in the Americas. Its website provides information on the purpose, operation and activities of the IACHR. This includes access to the full-text of a number of documents produced by the body, including annual reports, reports on the human rights situation in specific, Latin South American or Central American nations and investigations into human rights violations within the region.

ARDHIS - Association de Reconnaissance des Droits des personnes Homosexuelles et transsexuelles à l'Immigration et au Séjour

ARDHIS is a French-based association which was founded in 1998 and campaigns for equal immigration rights for gay, lesbian and transsexual people. Its website provides information on the purpose of the body and its history, plus a small amount of legal information. The site is entirely in French.

human-rights-50 mailing list archive

This list is to encourage academic discourse on the impact of the International Declaration of Human Rights 50 years on. Open to researchers and students, this list seeks to explore current issues and questions of the future relevance of the declaration & to be a general information resource. The site contains an archive of all messages submitted to the list (they are retained for 2 years) which can be interrogated using the free text or keyword search facility.

EFFweb: The Electronic Frontier Foundation

EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization working in the public interest to protect fundamental civil liberties, including privacy and freedom of expression, in the arena of computers and the Internet. EFF was founded in 1990. The site contains a large archive of material relating to electronic civil liberties arranged by topic. Topics include areas such as intellectual property, free speech; freedom of expression on the Internet. The archives contain copies of articles, papers, legislation, speeches, and other information.

InterAction : American Council for Voluntary International Action

InterAction is a 'coalition of more than 150 non-profit organizations working worldwide and a leading advocate in the U.S. for humanitarian assistance to the world's poor.' The site includes information on the latest humanitarian emergencies, InterAction's Development Division projects, links to development-related and other external sites, extensive details of forthcoming events, InterAction publications and also access to many of the articles from 'Monday Developments' - InterAction's biweekly publication.

Project on Government Secrecy

The Project on Government Secrecy has been set up by the Federation of American Scientists to challenge excessive government secrecy and to promote public oversight and Freedom of Information in the USA. The site provides details of the project and campaign successes. There is access to a government secrecy blog, Bush administration secrecy blog, declassification strategies, delcassified US government documents and other FOIA resources.

Den norske Helsingforskomite

The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is a member of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and works to promote democracy and human rights within Europe. Its primary activites include the monitoring of parliamentary elections within the OSCE (Office for Security of Central Europe). The website includes the full-text of the Helsinki Committee's reports on parliamentary elections since 1995. These include reports from Albania, Romania, the former Yugoslavia and nations of the former Soviet Union. The text is available in Norwegian or English.

OutRight Action International

Founded in 1990 to fill the gap between the international human rights movement and the gay rights movement, OutRight Action International (previously the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission) aims to advance the fundamental human rights of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, trans people and people with HIV/AIDS. It combines traditional human rights techniques such as monitoring, documenting, advocating and public policy development with grassroots organising and supporting groups in developing countries.

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