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Designed to improve legal protection of certain key rights worldwide through development of jurisprudence, strengthening
relevant mechanisms and providing education and training. Those rights are to freedom of expression, liberty and security,
equality and economic and social rights. In a special initiative, INTERIGHTS introduced a process to ensure that special
attention is paid to gender related issues in all INTERIGHTS' programmes, and in late 2001, established the Equality Programme
"to promote equality litigation and training to combat discrimination worldwide". In other areas, work is conducted primarily
under the regional programmes.
Equality
In its casework on equality, Interights addresses discrimination in many forms, based on gender, race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation at national and regional level. Its work in this field emphasises the potential to strengthen protection by use of comparative jurisprudence and strategies. Equality cases in one country, or under one international or regional system, may be of great value in setting precedents elsewhere, and successes achieved in relation to one form of discrimination may be used in combatting other forms of discrimination. Interights is now developing a strategic programme to strengthen legal protection for equal treatment, focusing initially on non-discrimination in relation to the most invidious forms of treatment based on race and gender.
In co-operation with the European Roma Rights Center and Migration Policy Group, Interights is undertaking a three-year initiative,
"Implementing European Anti-Discrimination Law", that aims to support local and regional groups and individuals in making the most of the historic EU Race Equality Directive and Protocol
No. 12 to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Latest News | Programme Activities | Links to Other Organisations
Free Expression
Interights' Freedom of Expression Litigation and Education Project aims to strengthen the legal protection of the right to freedom of expression (and the related rights to peaceful assembly, association and access to information) in countries around the world through strategic litigation in international, regional and national courts. The Project aims to promote 'cross-fertilisation' of free expression law by supporting litigation of test cases in international tribunals and by encouraging the use of comparative and international standards in domestic litigation. The Project offers direct representation before international human rights tribunals, files amicus curiae briefs in national and international courts, provides advice and support to lawyers litigating such cases in domestic courts, and provides education and training through publications and seminars. The project is guided by an international advisory panel of distinguished legal experts.
Activities April 2001 - March 2002
Liberty and Security
Much of Interights' work in each of its regional programmes concerns liberty and security of the person. Key issues addressed in recent years include the effect of prolonged delay in carrying out capital punishment; successive judgments in Jamaica, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council have built upon one another to develop new and increasingly persuasive jurisprudence that a long delay in the implementation of the death penalty constituted cruel and inhuman treatment. Another is in the constitutionality of the death penalty where Interights has advised in a series of cases, in South Africa, Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Trinidad and Tobago. Other issues addressed include the validity of amnesty provisions, impunity for gross human rights violations, conditions for patients detained in mental institutions and prison conditions.
Interights participated in the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court, concentrating primarily on specific procedural aspects of ensuring liberty and security of the person, particularly the protection of victims and witnesses. We anticipate active involvement in developing and using procedures before the Court.
Activities April 2001 - March 2002
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The importance of economic and social rights is now widely accepted and there are increasing efforts to clarify the content of those rights, to develop means of measuring and monitoring compliance with norms, to identify violations, and to develop improved international standards of protection. Interights' contribution is in strengthening the implementation and enforcement of economic and social rights through law.
At the international level, Interights is one of the organisations entitled to lodge complaints under a new Protocol to the European Social Charter instituting a system of collective complaints. This quasi-judicial forum (complaints will be heard by a Committee of Independent Experts) offers an important opportunity to develop jurisprudence on economic and social rights that may be of great influence elsewhere, as well as within Europe.
Activities April 2001 - March 2002
Gender
Rights related to gender do not form the focus of a specific programme within Interights. Rather we aim to ensure that all our programmes, thematic as well as regional, are informed by a gender perspective. To this end, we maintain a working group within the organisation to monitor work done on gender related issues under the different programmes, and to ensure that each of our programmes is informed by a gender perspective. As well as involvement in cases raising such issues as challenging the imposition of a death penalty on the basis of 'battered women's syndrome', women's inheritance rights and the issue of 'safe custody', we work closely with the UN Special Rapporteurs on Violence against Women and on Summary and Arbitrary Executions and the African Commission's Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Women. A special project is focussing on the incidence of 'honour crimes' against women.
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