International Human Rights Law

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights seeks to promote universal enjoyment of all human rights by responding to violations and promoting the implementation of international instruments. Its website provides the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in over 300 different languages, together with human rights treaties, fact sheets, decisions and working documents of the various UN human rights bodies (such as the Committee Against Torture and the Council on Human Rights). Printed and multi-media materials relating to the Universal Declaration are also available.

Inter-American Court of Human Rights

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights forms part of the Inter-American system of human rights, within the Organization of American States. Its website has Spanish or English versions, but most of the content is in Spanish. It offers judgments and decisions in Spanish; the Court's Statute and rules in Spanish, English and other languages; press releases in Spanish; and information about the work of the Court in Spanish and English (etc.).

New Zealand Refugee Law

New Zealand Refugee Law (RefNZ) provides a searchable database of all the decisions of New Zealand's Refugee Status Appeals Authority (RSAA), the full text of leading decisions, and Practice Notes of the RSAA. New Zealand High Court and Court of Appeal cases dealing with refugee issues are also provided, together with headnotes and a contents index. RefNZ additionally includes papers analysing on New Zealand refugee cases and a forum for comment on current refugee issues. Further sections of the site offer news, comments and statistics.

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia - (ICTY)

The ICTY was established by a United Nations Security Council Resolution in May 1993 to prosecute persons responsible for violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991. Its website contains legal documents relating to the operation of the Tribunal including the rules of procedure and regulations of conduct. It also contains details of all the cases tried by the tribunal, including the full-text of the initial indictments, data on the progress of the case and some transcripts.

United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG)

The United Nations Office at Geneva is the largest and most active centre for multilateral conference diplomacy in the world. The main areas of its expertise are disarmament, human rights, humanitarian affairs and trade and economic activities. The site contains links to speeches by the Director-General and a searchable list of press releases, which are available in full-text in HTML and PDF formats. There are also links to the UNOG Library. A further feature of the site is an archive of documents which contains the full-text of key documents such as the UN charter.

UNHCR: the UN Refugee Agency

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was created by the UN General Assembly in 1951. The site offers background information about the work of the UNHCR which includes advocacy, capacity building, fund raising and global needs assessment. There is a section dealing with the groups of people the UNHCR works with including children, women, elderly, disabled and asylem seekers and information on the areas of the world where the UNHRC operates. There are legal documents, statistics and global reports.

Journal of International Human Rights

Website of the Journal of International Human Rights (JIHR), an interdisciplinary journal covering human rights issues and the international law of human rights. The journal has Spring, Summer and Fall issues each year, published by the School of Law at Northwestern University in the United States. Each issue is available free on the site, from volume 1 onwards. The website also gives details of symposia and other events, plus links to human rights resources on the internet.

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