Human Rights Watch (HRW)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. HRW headquarters are in New York City with offices in Amsterdam, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo, Toronto, and Washington D.C.

As of June 2011, the organization’s annual expenses totaled $50.6 million.

The George Soros Open Society Foundation is the primary donor of the Human Rights Watch, contributing $100 million of $128 million of contributions and grants received by the HRW in the 2011 financial year. The $100 million contribution from the Open Society Foundation will be paid out over ten years in $10 million annual installments.

Human Rights Watch was founded as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor the former Soviet Union's compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Helsinki Watch adopted a methodology of publicly "naming and shaming" abusive governments through media coverage and through direct exchanges with policymakers. By shining the international spotlight on human rights violations in the Soviet Union and its European partners, Helsinki Watch contributed to the democratic transformations of the region in the late 1980s.

Americas Watch was founded in 1981 while bloody civil wars engulfed Central America. Relying on extensive on-the-ground fact-finding, Americas Watch not only addressed perceived abuses by government forces but also applied international humanitarian law to investigate and expose war crimes by rebel groups. In addition to raising its concerns in the affected countries, Americas Watch also examined the role played by foreign governments, particularly the United States government, in providing military and political support to abusive regimes.

Asia Watch (1985), Africa Watch (1988), and Middle East Watch (1989) were added to what was known as "The Watch Committees." In 1988, all of these committees were united under one umbrella to form Human Rights Watch.

Originally called the Helsinki Watch, the Human Rights Watch was first designed in 1978 as a support organization for citizens of the Soviet bloc. Their founding objective was to aid these citizens in monitoring government compliance with the Helsinki Accords of 1975, which called for respectful and cooperative relations between the Communist bloc and the West. The Helsinki Watch used media coverage, as well as contact with policymakers, to employ methods of publicly “naming and shaming” abusive governments. This way, the organization was able to bring international attention to corruption and abuse in Soviet and Eastern European governments, acting has a major force in the dramatic spread of democracy of the 1980s.

In wake of the Helsinki Watch’s successes, other “Watch Committees” began forming around the world – Americas Watch in 1981, Asia Watch in 1985 and Middle East Watch in 1989. Each were formed in the same likeness of the Helsinki Watch, though Americas Watch was the first to take it a step further as their Central American civil wars were raging on, and apply international humanitarian law to their efforts towards the investigation and exposition of war crimes by different rebel groups. In addition, they looked into, and were critical of, the roles that foreign governments may play in aiding abusive regimes, whether militarily, politically, or financially. These new strategies became lasting tactics of the organization as a whole, and in 1988, the collection of Watch Committees decided to merge under one all-inclusive title, calling themselves the "Human Rights Watch".

Human Rights Watch publishes reports on many different topics and compiles an annual World Report presenting an overview of the worldwide state of human rights. It has been published by Seven Stories Press since 2006; the current edition, World Report 2013, was released in February 2013. Human Rights Watch has reported extensively on subjects such as the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 and the conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In the summer of 2004, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York became the depository institution for the Human Rights Watch Archive, an active collection that documents decades of human rights investigations around the world. The archive was transferred from its previous location at the Norlin Library at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The archive includes administrative files, public relations documents, as well as case and country files. With some exceptions for security considerations, the Columbia University community and the public have access to field notes, taped and transcribed interviews with alleged victims of human rights violations, video and audio tapes, and other materials documenting the organization’s activities since its founding in 1978 as Helsinki Watch.

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