Seeking redress
Syndicate content

Demanding Compensation: Convincing the government to compensate victims of abuse by police, military, and armed forces personnel

In India, the National Human Rights Commission investigates complaints of human rights abuses and recommends that local governments provide compensation to victims.

Litigating representative cases to push for women’s rights through legal reform

The Center for Women’s Law Studies and Legal Services of Peking University was founded 1995 as a pubic interest law firm that conducts research on women’s issues and provides pro-bono legal services to Chinese women of all backgrounds.  The center’s most successful tactic has been in litigating a select number cases that carry great implications for Chinese women’s struggles in the current socio-economic context.  

Sharing stories of political prisoners and their relatives to pressure for their release

The Center for Human Rights & Development (CHRD) is a Sri Lankan NGO founded by a group of human rights lawyers and activists. It has facilitated the release of approximately 400 political prisoners by widely sharing stories of political prisoners and their relatives.

Mobilizing public resources for victims of human rights violations

ICAR Foundation in Romania mobilized public resources for the victims of human rights violations in order to get the State to take full responsibility for its actions by acknowledging and treating former political prisoners justly and humanely. Over nearly a decade, ICAR succeeded in getting the State to use public resources to assist in providing first the physical premises for torture treatment centers, and then the right to free medicines and insurance coverage for the specialized care and services that torture survivors required.

Using international law to affect national policy

In the late 1990s, in decisions regarding former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, governments in Spain and Britain used international law to determine that perpetrators of crimes against humanity cannot claim immunity from charges against them. Spanish courts invoked the principle of universal jurisdiction to order Pinochet’s arrest; this principle holds that every state has an interest in bringing to justice the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, no matter where those crimes take place or by whom. Pinochet’s challenges to this warrant were overturned by the British House of Lords, which argued that because Chile had ratified the 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatments or Punishments, he could not claim immunity from charges of torture. Although Pinochet was ultimately allowed to return to Chile, where he was excused from trial for medical reasons, the decisions by the Spanish and British courts helped demonstrate that there is no immunity from prosecution on charges of torture, that such crimes can be prosecuted anywhere in the world under the principle of universal jurisdiction, and that national courts can be used to force states to fulfill their obligations under international law.

Developing pro bono services in the professional legal community

Expanding Access to Justice notebook imageSince 2001, Brazil’s Instituto Pro Bono has worked to persuade individual lawyers and law firms to provide free legal services for nonprofit organizations and people in need. 

Training local level monitors to document and seek redress for human rights violations

The Chiapas Community Defenders Network (Red de Defensores Comunitarios por los Derechos Humanos or Red in Spanish) trains young indigenous community members throughout areas of Zapatista support in Chiapas to monitor and defend their human rights.  Defenders are trained through monthly seminars covering topics on the theories and concepts of human rights work as well as practical skills to ensure human rights violations are documented, reported and prevented.

Using civil lawsuits to seek redress for victims of torture

The Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA) helps victims of torture by using United States Federal Laws to bring civil charges against their torturers, regardless of country in which the torture took place. In the summer of 2002, a Florida jury awarded $54.6 million to three Salvadoran survivors who were tortured by Salvadoran security forces between 1979 and 1983.  These three individuals sued the generals who commanded the soldiers that tortured them, applying the doctrine of Command Responsibility, where a foreign commander is held liable for the actions of his troops.