On International Human Rights Defenders Day, we celebrate and thank defenders for their dedication to promoting and protecting the rights many of us take for granted.
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Their names are Betty, Juan, Rose, Doaa, Victoria, Maria, Adaobi. They are lawyers, journalists, environmentalists, community leaders, bloggers. They come from different countries. What do they have in common? Click on the video below!
Yes, these brave people are the drivers of social progress and the heroes of our times. On International Human Rights Defenders Day, we celebrate and thank them for their dedication to promoting and protecting the rights many of us take for granted.
There is one more thing these committed individuals have in common: all of them benefited from ISHR’s support, advocacy and training programmes. With over 30 years of expertise and dedication, ISHR was recognised by a recent independent evaluation as “a sophisticated and influential human rights actor (…) that serves as a bridge between human rights defenders operating at the grassroot or national level and policy makers and others operating at the international level.”
Our contribution is only possible with the support of people like you, who care about achieving real human rights change on the ground. Thanks to your support, and drawing on some of the skills and networks they were able to develop as participants in ISHR’s strategic advocacy and capacity building activities, in 2017 our alumni contributed to:
And with cross-regional networks strengthening solidarity and enhancing impact, participants from our 2017 Human Rights Defender Advocacy Programme from Cambodia, Ecuador, Peru and Russia collaborated to take action to promote corporate respect for human rights and secure accountability for business-related violations.
Will you help sponsor a human rights defender today? Donate now.
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Thank you for supporting ISHR and, through us, the vital work of Betty, Juan, Rose, Doaa, Victoria, Maria, Adaobi, and the many others who face threats, restrictions and even risk their lives to defend the rights of others.
In light of the UN’s liquidity crisis since 2024, ISHR compares when UN Member States are paying their assessed contributions to the UN’s regular budget over the period 2019-2025.
ISHR analysed how UN Member States voted at the General Assembly Fifth Committee over the past seven years (2018-2024) on initiatives that seek to defund Human Rights Council (HRC) resolutions establishing investigative mechanisms on specific countries. None of these initiatives have so far been successful.
In a first-of-its-kind investigation into the closed-door negotiations of the UN’s budget in New York, ISHR uncovers how a small group of States - led by China and Russia - have coordinated efforts to block and slash funding for the UN’s human rights work through political manoeuvring and influence. At a moment of sweeping UN reform and financial crisis, these efforts - compounded by the US failure to pay their UN membership fees and outstanding debts - pose an existential threat to the UN’s human rights system.
