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On or before October 1, 1992, Nigeria’s government will hand over the reins to civilian leaders of the Third Republic. In this report, Africa Watch shows how years of military rule have sapped the courts of the power to play a vital role in shaping a new democratic society. Bannings and detentions have brought Nigeria’s once lively universities to their knees.

The most comprehensive account now available on human rights violations in El Salvador, A Decade of Terror documents the civil war between an armed insurgency and the military-backed government, and explains how it has led to a decade of ferocious political violence that has cost thousands of civilian lives.

Human rights abuses are persistent and chronic in Northern Ireland, affecting Protestants and Catholics alike, and are committed by both security forces and paramilitary groups in violation of international standards.

The Brazilian government is failing to prosecute violence against women in the home fully and fairly. Despite ever-increasing domestic violence (particularly wife-murder, battery and rap) impunity and discriminatory treatment in favor of the perpetrators of domestic violence are still the rule in the Brazilian justice system.

Heads of state of Commonwealth nations meet this month in Harare, Zimbabwe. Their gathering is an important opportunity to take tangible steps to recognize the importance of human rights in the member states and to commit the Commonwealth to an initiative that would significantly enhance its role in combatting human rights abuses.

This report includes the four governments that are coming to Madrid to negotiate peace agreements, as well as Egypt -- an observer at the conference -- and the Palestinian leadership.

Hidden under the reforms initiated by President de Klerk since February 2, 1990, human rights violations continue unabated in Bophuthatswana, one of South Africa's four so?called "independent" homelands. In the past 18 months political violence has resulted in the killing of 23 people, detention of 633 and injury of 481.

In spite of a surge in human rights activity in Mexico during the past year, the human rights situation does not seem to have improved: the volume and severity of reported abuses remain unchanged.