SUMMARY

Our mission is to work for the promotion and respect of human rights around the world by providing free access to a comprehensive body of human rights law. These laws provide us with a universal and internationally protected code of human rights, one to which all nations can subscribe and to which all people can aspire.

USAGE

Each month more than 100,000 individuals, including those in countries which limit the free flow of information or where there is limited travel, have used the fundamental treaties, court decisions, and other materials found in the Library to advocate for human rights, educate themselves about their rights, and obtain information about human rights conditions around the world. The Library has become a core resource for human rights advocates, scholars, and educators in over 135 countries.

FOCUS

We focus on: (1) building the collection of unique resources for human rights advocates and scholars; (2) expanding the Library’s usefulness to individuals and organizations throughout the world by building its multilingual collection in French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese, while identifying further links to non-English-language sites on the Internet; (3) developing mirror sites in four locations around the world, thereby broadening the Library’s accessibility and increasing the number of educators and students using the Library; and (4) improving the search capabilities within the Library and allowing the users to easily access the wide range of human rights documents available across the World Wide Web.

FEATURES

The University of Minnesota Human Rights Library has the largest and most complete collection of human rights norm-setting instruments available on the World Wide Web. In general, we have also tried to attach authoritative citations to each document so that advocates and scholars can refer to the documents from their original hard-copy sources. We continue to add new instruments as they are issued or located. But we have also made an effort to focus on new subjects that have not previously been covered. For example, we have developed new collections on (1) human rights standards relating to business and (2) bioethics and human rights. There are now more than 230 human rights treaties and other primary documents in our collection. In addition, we have updated links to almost all of the human rights treaties’ ratification information, so that users can easily determine the application of those treaties.

The Library has also assembled critical jurisprudence and other authoritative interpretive materials. We have developed the most nearly complete collection of the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee. Nowhere else on the World Wide Web is there such a collection of the recent and older decisions and views of that core human rights institution which interprets the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We also have compiled a complete set of the General Comments of all the human rights treaty bodies in a format which far easier to use and to locate than the United Nations.

Our collection of links to other human rights resources is the largest on the web. In all, there are over 4,000 links organized in relatively easy-to-use categories with a focus on particular areas from which users might need information. Most recently we have added sets of links on HIV/AIDS and human rights, guidelines for elections, and disabled persons and human rights. In response to requests from a large number of asylum seekers and their lawyers, we have developed a special set of resources on refugees and asylum, which allow users to access relevant instruments, jurisprudence, information about human right country conditions relevant to asylum applications, and links. Further, each year the Library receives hundreds of requests from international human rights organizations and institutes that wish to have their project listed as a link in the Library. We continue to maintain a links database to better manage the growing collection of links to other human rights and related Web sites.

The Library has acquired tools to better facilitate and monitor its use. Each month, hundreds of advocates, scholars, and educators contact the Library with their research questions and feedback. Our web team promptly responds to inquiries regarding the location of documents, ratification status, and general suggestions. Many bibliographies and research guides have been collected or created to assist researchers. Further, the Library’s existing “what’s new” page is being regularly updated and restructured to make it more helpful to users by directing them to specific subject areas. In addition, we are presently working on establishing bi-monthly email updates that will be distributed via listserv. This mechanism will disseminate updates about the Library to a massive international human rights community.

Finally, our local human rights events calendar informs users of human rights courses, conferences, and presentations in the Twin Cities area. We also host a link to the affiliated Human Rights Resource Center's human rights job database where users can both pursue carres in human rights or submit job postings.