Human rights defenders

In 1998 the General Assembly adopted the Declaration of Human Rights Defenders (A/RES/53/144). It is an important step, recognizing the importance and legitimacy of the work of human rights defenders, as well as their need for better protection.

On the recommendation of the Commission on Human Rights - resolution 2000/61 (E/CN.4/RES/2000/61) - a Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders was appointed in 2000 to support the Declaration. The mandate calls upon the Special Representative to gather information on the situation of human rights defenders in all parts of the world, to make recommendations on better protection, and to report to the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly.

• Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders information about the mandate and working methods as well as full text documents and reports:
  • Annual reports. The Special Representative submits an annual report to the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council.
  • Full text documents of the investigations of the Special Rapporteur from 2000 onward.

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish | in English
• Resolution 217 A (III) / (A/RES/217) adopted by the UN General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 during its 183rd plenary meeting.
• The Core International Human Rights Instruments and their monitoring bodies.
• Universal Human Rights Index - UHRI. Human rights recommendations from all parts of the UN system: the UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies, the Human Rights Council mechanisms Universal Periodic Review and Special Procedures. Each document links to other related information in the database.
• Charter-based Body Database. Documents and reports of the Human Rights Council, its predecessor and their subsidiaries and parent organs. Maintained by OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights). 
• Treaty Body Database. Full text documents from the UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies.
• Yearbook on Human Rights 1946-1988
• OHCHR website for background information, documents and reports.
• Research guides by Dag Hammarskjöld Library:
  • Treaty research. 
  • Human rights documentation

• United Nations Digital Library offers UN documents and open access publications, UN voting data and speeches, UN maps, Content in 6+ languages. Replaces the traditional online catalogue UNBISnet.
• UN iLibrary UN publications online covering different topics.
• ODS full-text UN documents published from 1993 onward and scanned documents published between 1946 and 1993 in the official languages of the UN.
• Daily list of documents (ODS). Documents published for the day, with full text links, can be found in the United Nations full text database ODS.
• UNBIS Thesaurus a multilingual database of the controlled vocabulary used to describe UN documents.
• Index to proceedings is an annual bibliographic guide to the proceedings and documentation of the major UN organs. The index includes:
  • a list of all documents
  • a comprehensive subject index
  • an index to speeches
  • a voting chart of resolutions
• United Nations Documents Index (United Nations Digital Library) References to all documents by subject area are published. A collection of indexes is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library, Uppsala, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva.