LibGuides: Human Rights: Research Guide

Introductory Materials

GlobaLex
This website explains the procedures of the major international human rights systems. It also provides a comprehensive guide to navigating UN bodies and charters.

International Law by Valerie Epps; Lorie Graham introduction to international law -- Sources of international law -- The law of treaties -- The legal status of actors in the international arena
Call Number: KZ1242 .E675 2023
Publication Date: 2023

U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
The annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices cover internationally recognized individual, civil, political, and worker rights, as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements.
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch investigates and reports on Human Rights abuses globally and then does advocacy accordingly to these findings.
Freedom House- Freedom in the World
Country and territory reports covering population, political rights (numerical rating), civil liberties (numerical rating), status (Free, Partly Free, or Not Free), and a 10-year ratings timeline.
Country Statistical Yearbooks
The International Committee of the Red Cross
The Annual report of the ICRC is an account of their field activities conducted worldwide.

Human Rights Regionally
This guide includes human rights resources for Americas, Asia, Africa, Middle East and Europe broken down by region
RefWorld: National Legislation
Refworld contains a vast collection of reports relating to situations in countries of origin, policy documents and positions, and documents relating to international and national legal frameworks.
Ratification of International Human Rights Treaties
A resource map to explore what Human Rights treaties have been passed in specific countries.
U.S. Dept. of State, Office of the Legal Advisor, Treaties in Force:
A List of Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States (Washington, DC: Office of the Legal Advisor, 1929-).
International Justice Resource Center
The International Justice Resource Center (IJRC) provides advocates, civil society organizations, and victims of human rights abuses with the information and resources they need to effectively use international legal protections – including advocacy before human rights monitoring bodies and complaints before international and domestic courts – to bring about justice and accountability for human rights violations.
CRL’s human rights collections
feature primary source materials ranging from the proceedings of the post-World War II war crimes trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo to the files of the Khmer Rouge Santebal police recovered from the notorious Tuol Sleng Prison in Cambodia.

Human Rights Research Guide
Research guide to UN materials dealing with human rights, with links to full text when available.
Human Rights by Topic
Human Rights by Country
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Jurisprudence
This database provides easy access to jurisprudence emanating from the United Nations Treaty Bodies which receive and consider complaints from individuals
Members of the UN
Human Rights Indicators: A Guide to Measurement and Implementation / Interactive Map
Universal Human Rights Index (UHRI)
The UHRI allows you to explore over 170.000 observations and recommendations made by the international human rights protection system: Treaty Bodies, Universal Periodic Review, and Special Procedures.
Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council
The special procedures of the Human Rights Council are independent human rights experts with mandates to report and advise on human rights from a thematic or country-specific perspective. They are non-paid and elected for 3-year mandates that can be reconducted for another three years. As of October 2022, there are 45 thematic and 14 country mandates.
UN Refugee Agency (UNCHR)
International Law Commission

Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline is a premier online research platform that provides more than 199 million pages of multidisciplinary periodicals, essential government documents, international resources, case law, and much more. HeinOnline includes U.S. federal and state and international legal materials. Sources include government publications from judicial, legislative, and executive branches of government (court opinions, statutes, and administrative materials) and secondary sources such as treatises and legal periodicals; with historic and current coverage.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of journals in the humanities and social sciences. It provides full-text searches of almost 2,000 journals. Full-text scholarly journal issues are typically added to the database 3 to 5 years after the publication date.
Oxford Journals Online This link opens in a new window
home of 500 peer-reviewed journals published by Oxford University Press and learned societies from around the world.