Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch
Website	http://www.hrw.org/
Founded	1978
Headquarters	350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York , New York United States

Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to protecting human rights around the world. HRW produces reports on human rights violations as a means of focusing media and government attention on the issue.

History

Human Rights Watch came from the group Helsinki Watch which publicly named governments (specifically the Soviet Union) and specific people within them who violated the Helsinki Accords and other human rights. In the 1980’s other watch groups were formed, Americas watch Asia watch and Africa watch. All of these combined to create Human Rights watch in 1988.

Current objectives and activities

Human Rights Watch will investigate a suspected human rights violation locally and produce a report called the World Report. The report highlights the current human rights situation around the world. They are known for publicly shaming governments by exposing the situation to the media and pushing the issue to the eyes of the world media. Media exposer is their main tool for eliminating human right violations. Their goal is to expose and end violations. Human Rights Watch has also taken on the issue of health concerns such as AIDS/HIV.

Organizational structure

Since 1993, Kenneth Roth has been executive director. He was formerly an Assistant United States Attorney.

Human rights watch consist of different watches for each region, Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. They all have local researchers that generate reports. HRW employs over 275 people including layers, journalists, and academics.

Achievements

HRW won the Nobel Peace Prize 1997 for the collaboration in the campaign to stop the use of landmines. They pushed for the removal of all landmines along with the trade and creation on landmines, and were an important influence on the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction.

Public perception and controversies

See also: Lawfare

While HRW claims to have no political bias, DiscoverTheNetworks (DTN) criticized them as being a politically left organization that often criticizes the United States. DTN is one example of a group critical of lawfare, or the use of international humanitarian law to limit the options of the United States and other nations. In general, the more an organization treats national sovereignty as a priority, the more it disapproves of NGOs.

Examples include: HRW wanted a legal response to the 9-11 Attacks opposing a violent war. HRW supports the removal of border protection along the U.S Mexican border. They also support amnesty for illegal aliens. They are also accused of being too critical of Israel during their war with Hezbollah.

NGO Watch describes the use of lawfare by NGOs including HRW and Amnesty International in the Israel-Palestine Conflict. Kenneth Anderson] said NGOs such as Human Rights Watch “focus to near exclusion on what the attackers do, especially in asymmetrical conflicts where the attackers are Western armies” and tend “to present to the public and press what are essentially lawyers’ briefs that shape the facts and law toward conclusions that [they] favor… without really presenting the full range of factual and legal objections to [their] position."

HRW actively supports the doctrine of universal jurisdiction. HRW's Executive Director, Kenneth Roth, critiqued Henry Kissinger's questioning of universal jurisdiction.