The United Nations and the world's regional human rights bodies work to protect, monitor, and advance human rights. Parties subject to international and regional human rights treaties are required to submit to international tribunals regular reports detailing their compliance.
The international human rights system depends on the active participation of civil society, including NGOs, nonprofits, the academic community, and activists. By providing credible examples of human rights violations, participants draw attention to systemic problems and help end human rights violations.
Using international justice mechanisms, The Advocates for Human Rights:
Accessing the international human rights systems may seem discouraging. To help, The Advocates for Human rights created Human Rights Tools for a Changing World. Our guide makes it easy for NGOs, nonprofits, and activists to become involved in international human rights advocacy.
What Is a Shadow Report? Shadow reports are a method for non-government organizations (NGOs) to supplement and/or present alternative information to reports governments are required to submit under treaties. NGOs play an essential role in providing reliable and independent information, which may be overlooked in a government's report. NGOs around the world use shadow reports to lobby various United Nations' bodies, including treaty-monitoring bodies, thematic groups, charter-based bodies, and the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
To read The Advocates' shadow reports to the UN and regional human rights bodies, click here.
What Is a Regional Mechanism? Parts of the world, such as Africa, the Americas, and Europe, have created structures and systems to support and protect human rights and human rights defenders in the countries located in their respective regions. These stuctrures and systems call attention to a government's human rights abuses, as well as the degree to which it protects human rights. Asia and the Middle East lack such mechanisms.