The most widely and rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history is 20 years old. The Convention on the Rights of the Child was shaped by the United States, which drafted more of its provisions than any other government. Only two countries in the world have failed to ratify the...

Obama Should Replace Failed Embargo With Effective Multilateral Policy
By José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch

(Washington, DC) - Raúl Castro's government has locked up scores of people for exercising their fundamental freedoms and allowed scores more political prisoners arrested during Fidel Castro's rule to languish...

Government Inaction, Restrictive Regulations Condemn Hundreds of Thousands to Unbearable Suffering

By Diederik Lohman, senior health and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch

(New Delhi) - Hundreds of thousands of patients in India unnecessarily experience excruciating pain, Human Rights Watch said in a report today. Restrictive drug regulations,...

Despite National Commitment, Many Unable to Access Services

By Aruna Kashyap, South Asia Researcher in the Women's Rights Division

(Lucknow, India) - Tens of thousands of Indian women and girls are dying during pregnancy, in childbirth, and in the weeks after giving birth, despite government programs guaranteeing free...

At Copenhagen Meeting, Adopt Plan to Oversee Human Rights Environment for Games

(New York) - The Copenhagen Olympic Congress should create a permanent mechanism to monitor human rights in host countries before, during and after Olympic Games, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch, which has submitted...

North Caucasus Menaced by Killings of Rights Defenders, Other Violence

Moscow) - Russia has ignored a series of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights on Chechnya, fueling unchecked violence in the North Caucasus, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Following the recent murders of human...

Planned 2010 Elections Not Credible if Opposition Remains in Prison

(Washington, DC) - Burma's military government has more than doubled the number of political prisoners in the past two years, including more than a hundred imprisoned in recent months, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. Sentenced...

Scores Injured and at Least 4 Killed in Downtown Kampala

(Kampala) - The Ugandan police should stop using unnecessary lethal force against protesters in Kampala, where scores of people were injured and at least four died on September 10, 2009, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch called...

By Simone Troller

Create Open Centers for Migrant Children

(Geneva) - An estimated 150 unaccompanied migrant children being held in a detention center on Lesvos Island were on a hunger strike for four days to protest their living conditions, Human Rights Watch said today. The protest, reported by local sources,...

No Protection by Authorities from Widening Murder Campaign

(Beirut) Iraqi militias are carrying out a spreading campaign of torture and murder against men suspected of homosexual conduct, or of not being "manly" enough, and Iraq authorities have done nothing to stop the killing, Human Rights Watch said in a...

Launches from Populated Areas Endanger Israelis and Palestinians

(Jerusalem) -- Hamas should repudiate unlawful rocket attacks against Israeli population centers and hold those responsible for them to account, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have over several years launched thousands...

By Brad Adams

(Bangalore) - The Indian government should take major steps to overhaul a policing system that facilitates and even encourages human rights violations, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. For decades, successive governments have failed to deliver on promises to hold the police accountable for...

The Cambodian government should urgently address dangerous conditions in a de facto AIDS colony it has created and immediately stop sending HIV-affected families there, more than 100 international HIV/AIDS and social justice organizations and experts said in a joint letter delivered on July 27, 2009 to Cambodia's prime minister and...

David Scott Mathieson

MAE SOT--United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appears to have been granted a belated booby prize from Burma's military rulers after his recent trip. On July 13, Ban bleakly reported to the Security Council that his visit was a major lost opportunity for the ruling State Peace and...

Natalia Estemirova, a top human rights activist in the troubled Russian republic of Chechnya and a close colleague of Human Rights Watch, was abducted near her home in Grozny on the morning of July 15, 2009, carried off in a car as people on a nearby balcony heard her call...

By Minky Worden

Twenty years after the Chinese army killed untold numbers of unarmed civilians in Beijing and other cities on and around June 3-4, 1989, the Chinese government continues to victimize survivors, victims' families, and others who challenge the official version of events. And inside China, the concerns raised...

UN Security Council Fails to Act While Civilians Suffer

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(New York) - New satellite imagery and eyewitness accounts contradict Sri Lankan government claims that its armed forces are no longer using heavy weapons in the densely populated conflict area in northern Sri Lanka, Human...

(New York) - The Sri Lankan armed forces have repeatedly struck hospitals in the northern Vanni region in indiscriminate artillery and aerial attacks, Human Rights Watch said today. Commanders responsible for ordering or conducting such attacks may be prosecuted for war crimes.

Patients, medical staff, aid workers, and other witnesses...

(New York) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should call on Israel and the Hamas authorities to cooperate with the investigation led by Justice Richard Goldstone into serious laws of war violations by both sides during recent fighting in Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. A UN Board of Inquiry,...

Flawed Military Justice System Undermines Security and Antidrug Efforts

(Mexico City) - Mexico is failing to hold members of the military who commit human rights violations accountable, undercutting its efforts to curb drug-related violence and improve public security, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

The 76-page report,...