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Some Frequently Asked Questions About Human Rights Watch
Where are you located?Our headquarters is in New York. We also maintain offices in Brussels, Bujumbura, Freetown (Sierra Leone), Kigali, Geneva, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, San Francisco, Santiago de Chile, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Toronto, and Washington. Most research is carried out by sending fact-finding teams to countries where there have been allegations of serious human rights abuses. How large is the staff of Human Rights Watch?As of December 2005, Human Rights Watch employed 233 staff plus short-term fellows and consultants. Our work is supplemented with the generous help of interns, volunteers, and members. How do you do your work?Human Rights Watch researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses by governments and non-state actors in all regions of the world. We visit the site of abuses to interview victims, witnesses and others. We publish our findings in dozens of books and reports every year, generating extensive coverage in local and international media. In moments of crisis, we seek to report up-to-the-minute information so as to maximize the impact of our work. By exposing human rights violations, this publicity shames abusers and helps to put pressure on them to reform their conduct. Human Rights Watch seeks dialog with offending governments to encourage them to change abusive laws and policies. We also enlist the support of other influential actors such as the United Nations, the European Union, international financial institutions, the U.S. government, and others. In the case of particularly egregious abuses, Human Rights Watch may press for the withdrawal of military and certain economic support. How is Human Rights Watch different from Amnesty International?Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are the only two international human rights organizations operating worldwide in most situations of severe repression or abuse. Though close allies, the two groups play complementary roles, reflecting a healthy division of labor. The major differences lie in the groups’ structure and methods for promoting change. Amnesty International is a mass-membership organization. Mobilization of those members is the organization's central advocacy tool. Human Rights Watch’s principal advocacy strategy is to shame offenders by generating press attention and to exert diplomatic and economic pressure on them by enlisting influential governments and institutions. With the help of our significantly smaller membership base, we have also played a key role in building broad coalitions around specific human rights issues, such as the campaigns to ban landmines, to stop the use of child soldiers, and to establish the International Criminal Court. To facilitate communication with its membership, Amnesty International addresses a narrower set of abuses. Traditionally, it has focused on abuses confronting individual prisoners, although it has gradually broadened this case and prison orientation to address other abuses as well. Human Rights Watch has long addressed a far broader range of abuses, including not only prisoner-related concerns but also many abuses that do not involve custody, such as discrimination, censorship and other restrictions on civil society, issues of democratization and the rule of law, and a wide array of war-related abuses, from the indiscriminate shelling of cities to the use of landmines. Human Rights Watch prides itself on aggressively expanding the categories of victims who can seek protection from our movement. Since the late 1980s, we have gradually added special programs devoted to the rights of women, children, workers, common prisoners, refugees, migrants, academics, gays and lesbians, and people living with HIV/AIDS. How do you decide which countries to work on?Because of limited resources, Human Rights Watch tries to strike a balance in its work between countries with the worst human rights problems and countries where there is a moment of special opportunity for us to propel change. That is, we consider the severity of abuses, the number of people affected, and the possibility for impact. In making this assessment, we take into account the ability of our researchers to obtain current and accurate information, either by going to the country or by obtaining reliable information from refugees, exiles, and other reliable sources, as well as the existence of local organizations with which we can work. Plans are set annually and then regularly reassessed as events unfold. We try to anticipate trouble spots, but we also allow for unforeseen crises by having emergency researchers ready to be deployed quickly. To be most effective, we try to remain focused as well as flexible and responsive. Wouldn't it save more lives to prevent abuses instead of documenting them after the fact?Documenting abuses is inherently a preventive strategy. When we investigate and expose past human rights violations, we seek to hold their authors accountable, both politically and judicially. We shame abusers, seek to cut off their aid, and promote their prosecution. Our aim is to increase the price of human rights abuse. The more reliably this can be done, the more would-be abusers will think twice before committing future human rights violations. Do you work on the United States?Yes. As the largest international human rights organization based in the United States, we have a special responsibility to address human rights abuses in the United States. The issues we address are a product of our methodology. Human Rights Watch rarely uses litigation. If other organizations can effectively defend rights in the United States by filing lawsuits before the courts, we defer to them. But there are some rights in the United States that the courts are not effectively enforcing, especially when weak or unpopular minorities are the victims. Prisoners facing sexual assault, victims of police abuse, African-Americans confronting discrimination in the criminal justice system, undocumented migrants treated abusively, gays and lesbians facing discrimination in many states, and workers seeking to organize unions, to cite several examples, today cannot reliably vindicate their rights in court. In such cases, our methodology can make a special contribution. Developed to enforce rights in countries that lack effective judicial systems, our methodology of investigating, reporting and building public pressure on the executive and legislative branches of government can help protect rights in countries such as the United States when the courts fail to protect certain categories of victims. Find out more about our work on human rights in the United States at our Web pages on human rights in the United States. We also press the U.S. government to incorporate human rights concerns into U.S. foreign policy. What is Human Rights Watch's position on the death penalty?Human Rights Watch opposes capital punishment in all circumstances because of its cruel and inhumane nature. The cornerstone of human rights is respect for the inherent dignity of all human beings and the inviolability of the human person. These principles cannot be reconciled with the death penalty, a form of punishment that is unique in its barbarity and finality. Moreover, the intrinsic fallibility of all criminal justice systems assures that even when full due process of law is respected, innocent persons may be executed. We work globally in opposing the death penalty, including in the United States, one of the few countries to execute offenders who were under eighteen years of age at the time of their crime. Does Human Rights Watch work on social, cultural, and economic rights?Yes. Since its formation in 1978, Human Rights Watch has focused mainly on upholding civil and political rights, but in the last decade we have increasingly addressed economic, social and cultural rights as well. We pay particular attention to situations in which our methodology of investigation and reporting is most effective, such as when arbitrary or discriminatory governmental conduct lies behind an economic, social and cultural rights violation. In addition to governments, our work also addresses economic actors such international financial institutions and multinational corporations. Click here for a list of recent Human Rights Watch reports that address economic, social and cultural rights, including the rights to health care, education, and fair conditions of labor. Does Human Rights Watch concern itself with the millions of people suffering, starving, and dying because they live in poverty?Yes. Rather than handing out economic assistance – we are not a service-delivery organization – Human Rights Watch addresses the underlying causes of poverty, such as discrimination, armed conflict, and displacement. We also examine human rights violations that exacerbate humanitarian crises, such as restrictions on the media and attacks on humanitarian agencies. We press governments and international financial institutions to incorporate human rights concerns into their economic development strategies. How do you decide what reports to translate into other languages?Our reports are produced in English, but we recognize the great value in issuing our reports in other languages. Most of our translation budget is dedicated to translating reports into languages where there is a large and interested readership. On our Web site, we translate as much as possible with limited resources. Given the high cost of translation, we depend on many volunteers for their expertise. In choosing, we opt to translate the documents that are the broadest reaching and most current. If you would like to volunteer or support our translation work, please contact us. Did the U.S. government start Human Rights Watch? Does the U.S. government fund Human Rights Watch?No, the U.S. Government did not start Human Rights Watch, nor does Human Rights Watch accept any funds from the U.S. government (or any other government). Indeed, we are often highly critical of the U.S. government for its human rights policies at home and abroad. Human Rights Watch is a fully independent, nongovernmental organization, supported exclusively by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. Human Rights Watch accepts no funds from any government, directly or indirectly, nor have we ever. Human Rights Watch was founded as "Helsinki Watch" in 1978 to support the citizens' groups that formed, first in Moscow, then throughout the Eastern bloc, to monitor their governments' compliance with the 1975 Helsinki Accords. How much do you spend each year? How much do you spend on fundraising? How much do you spend on program vs. overhead?From July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006, our expenses were as follows:
Of the money raised by Human Rights Watch in Fiscal Year 2006, 17.83% of the money was spent on fundraising. For a more detailed breakdown of our income and expenses, click here. How can I find, join, or start a Human Rights Watch group at my school?We encourage teachers and students to get involved by downloading information from our Web site, visiting the campaigns and community pages on our site, and signing up for our email newsletter. Our California office currently has a pilot project working with schools in the area. If you attend a school in the Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area and are interested in starting a group please contact us. We welcome teacher and student support elsewhere as well. If you are a high school teacher, media educator or student in the US or UK and you would like to bring some human rights videos to your school, please refer to our "classroom" section of the Film Festival Web site. How can I bring the Human Rights Watch Film Festival to my town?If you are interested in licensing the traveling festival you can select from a minimum of three to a maximum of all the film titles in the package at a cost of $250 per title. You can license the package for periods ranging from a week to a semester. You can screen on DVD or Beta SP video, depending on availability. Venues must pay one-way shipping, be it to the next site or back to HRW. Venues will be provided with support materials from Human Rights Watch. For information, please visit the Film Festival Web site. Do you sell Human Rights Watch watches?At this time we do not sell wrist watches. However, we are exploring the possibility of selling Human Rights Watch merchandise to support our work. If you are interested in purchasing HRW merchandise, please let us know. How many visitors does your Web site get? How many subscribers does your listserv have?In March 2006 our Web site received 48,000 average daily user sessions and 118,642 average daily page views. These numbers do not include our internal usage and traffic generated by search engines indexing our site. Over 39,000 users receive the monthly email update, which is sent to the update and news release lists. Over 3,800 receive our material on our non-English lists. To sign up for one of our listservs, visit http://www.hrw.org/act/subscribe-mlists/subscribe.htm I have a question that is not answered on this page. Will you answer it?Sure! If you have a question, just send it to us. We try to answer as many inquiries as we can. |
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