General Resources | Minorities & Indigenous Peoples | Poverty | Race | Refugees
Sexual Orientation | Slavery | War & Peace | Women | Other UN Human Rights Sites
General Human Rights Resources
Equal Rights Trust
Self-described as “an independent organisation whose purpose is to combat discrimination and promote equality as a fundamental human right and a basic principle of social justice.” For research, see the Virtual Library on Equality, which includes “a multitude of non-discrimination resources, ranging from documents on case law, reports on international, regional and national discrimination norms, advocacy submissions to governments and UN bodies, legal guidance resources, academic journals and book chapters.” All of Equal Rights Trust’s publications can also be found there.
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
ECCHR is an independent, non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to enforcing civil and human rights worldwide. It was founded in 2007 by Wolfgang Kaleck and other international human rights lawyers to protect and enforce the rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as other human rights declarations and national constitutions, through legal means.
European Court of Human Rights
Human Rights First
An organization working to end human rights abuses. Homepage includes links to human rights news around the globe.
Human Rights Watch
A good source of news about current human rights issues. The focus of this site is on world peace, but there is also information about other human rights issues. The organization describes itself as follows: “Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide.”
United Nations Human Rights Council
U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor
This page includes a link to the annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. The U.S. Department of State submits reports on all countries receiving assistance and all United Nations member states to the U.S. Congress in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Trade Act of 1974.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
History of the declaration: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948, was the result of the experience of the Second World War. With the end of that war, and the creation of the United Nations, the international community vowed to never again allow atrocities like those of that conflict to happen again. World leaders decided to complement the UN Charter with a road map to guarantee the rights of every individual everywhere. The document they considered, and which would later become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was taken up at the first session of the General Assembly in 1946.” More
Minorities & Indigenous Peoples
Center for World Indigenous Studies
International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)
IWGIA is a global human rights organisation dedicated to promoting, protecting and defending indigenous peoples’ rights. IWGIA was founded in 1968 by anthropologists alarmed about the ongoing genocide on indigenous peoples taking place in the Amazon.
Minority Rights Group International
An international human rights organization “working to secure rights for ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous people around the world.” Our library subscribes to several of this organization’s publications, which are also available online at this site.
Native American Rights Fund
Includes the Tribal Law Gateway , a portal to the laws of federally recognized tribes.
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs: Indigenous Peoples
Includes records of the UN’s annual Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Poverty
Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity
The Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity investigates the ways that laws, policies and practices affect development patterns in U.S. metropolitan regions, with a particular focus on the growing social and economic disparities within these areas.
National Center for Law and Economic Justice
UNDP – United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Committee on Migrant Workers
Anti-Racism Sites
Institute on Race and Poverty
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
Refugees & Asylum
Amnesty International – Refugees and Migrants
Use the menus on the left side this page to select the topics and resources you want to search.
Human Rights Watch – Refugee Rights
International Refugee Rights Initiative
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Sexual Orientation
ACLU LGBT Rights
Archives of Sexuality & Gender: LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940
This resource consists of 20 individual collections, with a total page count of nearly one and a half million pages. Documents span from 1940 to 2014, with the bulk from 1950 to 1990. This archive is useful for scholars and researchers focused on gender and LGBTQ studies, women’s studies, American studies, civil and human rights, journalism, social movement history, British twentieth-century history, and more. Available only to current CUNY School of Law students and faculty.
Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
Gender, Equity, & Human Rights
The global Gender, Equity and Human Rights team, comprised of staff across all six regions as well as in some WHO country offices, oversees the integration of gender, equity and human rights into healthcare programmes and policies across the different programme areas that make up the World Health Organization. Provided by the UN World Health Organization.
Legal Recognition of Same Sex Relationships
A guide to the laws of countries throughout the world that recognize or prohibit same-sex relationships. Prepared by the Jones Day law firm.
LGBT Life
This database has been made available to us by the central CUNY Office of Library Services. Contains the content of more than 120 historically significant LGBT journals, magazines, and regional newspapers as well as more than 150 full-text monographs and books including Classics in Lesbian Studies, Gay Science: The Ethics of Sexual Orientation Research, Handbook of Research with Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Populations, Queer Theory & Social Change, etc. Available only to current CUNY School of Law students and faculty.
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force
Slavery
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law – HeinOnline
HeinOnline states that this collection brings together, for the first time, all known legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world.
War & Peace
Afghanistan Documentation Project
Joint project of the War Crimes Research Office and Pence Law Library at American University Washington College of Law documenting human rights abuses in Afghanistan since 1971.
Human Rights Watch
A good source of news about current human rights issues. The focus of this site is on world peace, but there is also information about other human rights issues. The organization describes itself as follows: “Human Rights Watch is an independent, nongovernmental organization, supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide.”
United Nations & Decolonization
United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs
United Nations Committee Against Torture
United Nations E-MINE: Electronic Mine Information Network
United Nations Peace & Security Web Site
United Nations Peacekeeping
United Nations Security Council
United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children & Armed Conflict
Women’s Rights
Equal Rights Advocates
Gender Jurisprudence and International Criminal Law Project
The Gender Jurisprudence Collections (GJC) is a powerful database containing judgments, decisions, orders, and other relevant documents issued by international/ized criminal courts and tribunals that have been coded and made readily searchable for issues relating to sexual and gender-based violence. The Gender Jurisprudence and International Criminal Law Project is a collaborative project between the War Crimes Research Office (WCRO) and the Women and International Law Program (WILP) at the American University Washington College of Law. More information.
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women
Women’s Human Rights Resources
Maintained by the Bora Laskin Law Library, U. of Toronto.
UN Women
UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women.
Other United Nations Sites Focusing on Human Rights and Humanitarian Concerns
United Nations Documentation Research Guide
A good place to start if you are unfamiliar with research involving UN documents. This is the human rights section of a guide prepared by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjšld Library that “provides an overview of the various types of documents and publications issued by the Organization (e.g, reports, resolutions, meeting records, sales publications, press releases) and gives guidance on how to work with them. Includes links to UN charter-based and treaty-based bodies, human rights conferences and declarations, and a human rights pathfinder.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations Human Rights Council
United Nations Human Rights Committee
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
United Nations ReliefWeb (humanitarian information)
United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
United Nations Enable: Promoting the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities
United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child