International Human Rights Law

As the principal United Nations office mandated to promote and protect human rights for all, OHCHR leads global human rights efforts speaks out objectively in the face of human rights violations worldwide. They provide a forum for identifying, highlighting and developing responses to today's human rights challenges, and act as the principal focal point of human rights research, education, public information, and advocacy activities in the United Nations system.

In the post-World War II period, international consensus crystallized around the need to identify the individual rights and liberties which all governments should respect, and establish mechanisms for both promoting States’ adherence to their human rights obligations and for addressing serious breaches. In subsequent decades, each oversaw the drafting of human rights agreements on specific topics and created additional oversight mechanisms, which now include the United Nations treaty bodies and Universal Periodic Review, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the European Committee of Social Rights.

The Global International Humanitarian Law Centre of Diakonia engages in the global promotion for the respect of international humanitarian law. As an organisation with a long history and track record of promoting human rights across the world, engaging on the complementary and specific legal framework regulating armed conflict (IHL) provides Diakonia with a more holistic basis for promoting respect of human dignity under all situations and circumstances.

"The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – the Human Rights Reports – cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements. 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."