THE STRUGGLE AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES

Human rights violations in member's own countries;

When AI receives a report of a human rights violation, the report is centrally evaluated and then taken up by members throughout the world, but not by AI members in the country where the abuse has taken place. This is called the "work-on-own-country rule".

AI members, in their AI capacities, do not gather, assess or act upon information about human rights cases in their own country.

The purpose of this rule is to maintain the movement's independence and impartiality. It establishes and it demonstrates an objective "distance between the activist and the human rights concern".

This practice is particularly important when AI deals with allegations of torture, unfair trial or imprisonment, political killings, or "disappearances", which are often surrounded by controversy and official denials. The rule:

Ensures that AI retains its essential character as an international movement of mutual support rather than becoming a federation of national human rights organizations.

Helps protect AI's campaigning presence in countries where human rights have been grossly violated.

Maintains a clear distinction between AI and domestic civil liberties bodies.

Ensures that local pressures and loyalties do not damage AI's impartiality.

This rule applies at every level of the movement, to volunteer members as well as to staff. It can be explained in two parts:

AI members do not, in AI's name, gather information about human rights violations that take pace in their own country.

Despite the fact that AI national bodies and local groups and members may be in the best position to do so, the organization does not involve them in gathering information on their own countries. Information about human rights violations is collected and evaluated at the organization's central research office, the International Secretariat. Even there, individual researchers are not permitted to work on their own countries.

This research is backed up by fact-finding missions to countries. When an AI research mission is visiting their country, section offices and groups do not take part.

AI members who have information about human rights abuses in any country, including their own, may send it for evaluation to the International Secretariat. But they must do this in their private capacities or as members of other organizations. It must be made clear that they are not acting as AI members.

AI members do not, in AI's name, campaign against human rights violations that take place in their own country.

For example, prisoners of conscience are always assigned for adoption to AI groups based in other countries. Similarly, expatriates of a country that is a target of an AI campaign should avoid taking a leading or visible position in the action. They should not sign appeals that will be sent to their former home government.

AI members who wish to protest against human rights abuses within AI's mandate in their own country may do so. But it must be clear that they are not acting as AI members.

So what can they do?

National and local human rights education programs in schools, universities and the community at large, and they ask their own government to support programs that teach human rights to public officials, police, and military personnel

They campaign for general abolition of the death penalty

Campaign to get their governments to ratify international human rights treaties

Translate, stock and distribute AI's international reports on every country in the world, including their own.

Take steps to help prevent asylum-seekers being sent back to countries where they are at risk.

The "work-on-own-country rule" ensures the global integrity of AI's work and image and must be observed.

UNIVERSAL DECLARATION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in cooperation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, therefore, THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims

This Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the security of person

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

Everyone charged with a penal offense has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.
No one shall be held guilty of any penal offense on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offense, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offense was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each State.
Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.
This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15

Everyone has the right to a nationality.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17

Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in a community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21

Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23

Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable renumeration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.
Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27

Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its beliefs.
Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29

Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.
These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

• it will serve as a permanent deterrent to people considering these crimes. In most cases in the last fifty years international mechanisms to prosecute people accused of these crimes have only been set up after the crimes have occurred;
  
• it will have a much wider jurisdiction than the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the tribunals have been limited to crimes committed in a particular territory while crimes committed in other territories have not been addressed; and
  
• the Statute contains the most advanced provisions for the protection of victims from retraumatization as well as provision on the Court's order for a convicted person to provide redress, in the form of compensation, restitution, rehabilitation, satisfaction, guarantees of non-repetition, and any other type of reparation the Court deems appropriate.

• the organization was very active in lobbying governments to adopt a statute which would provide for a just, fair and effective court;
  
• following the adoption of the Statute, Amnesty International launched a worldwide campaign for ratification and its members around the world are lobbying their governments to ratify;
  
• following the adoption of the Statute, the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court was established to draft supplementary documents to the Statute, including, the Elements of Crimes, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence and the Financial Regulations and Rules of the Court. Amnesty International has been active in all sessions of the Preparatory Commission lobbying governments in the capital city as well as at the session itself to ensure that these documents are drafted to provide for an effective Court;
  
• Amnesty International was a cofounder of the Coalition for an International Criminal Court, which is made up of over 1000 NGOs, and is a member of its Steering Committee.

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