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CSIS Human Rights Initiative undertakes research and analysis on the critical role that human rights and democratic values play in a comprehensive and sustainable foreign policy.

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Advancing Decent Work and Labor Rights Globally

The Human Rights Initiative hosted a discussion of the impact of the global labor rights movement on American workers, businesses, and consumers.

Transcript — February 21, 2024

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Ukraine’s Rapid Digitalization: Human Rights Risks and Opportunities in a Postwar Environment

Report by ​Marti Flacks, Caitlin Chin-Rothmann, Lauren Burke, Julia Brock, and Iryna Tiasko — February 14, 2024

 Photo: Manuel Hernandez/Vizzor Image/Getty Images

A New Security Paradigm in Colombia

Commentary by Juliana Rubio — January 31, 2024

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The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund Should Do Less to Achieve More

Report by Jennifer "DJ" Nordquist and Dan Katz — January 22, 2024

Latest Podcasts

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Amb. David Satterfield: Humanitarian Aid in Gaza

Podcast Episode by Jon B. Alterman, Will Todman, and Leah Hickert — February 20, 2024

Audio Briefs

“Ukraine’s Rapid Digitalization: Human Rights Risks and Opportunities in a Postwar Environment”: Audio Brief with Lauren Burke

Podcast Episode by Lauren Burke — February 14, 2024

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Derechos Humanos en Cuba / Human Rights in Cuba

Podcast Episode by Christopher Hernandez-Roy — January 12, 2024

Analysis: Human Rights in a Multipolar World

Podcast Episode by Natasha Hall — December 19, 2023

Past Events

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A Human Rights Approach to Ukraine's Rapid Digitalization

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Report Launch: China’s Role in Democratic Backsliding in Latin America and the Caribbean

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Venezuela's Deteriorating Electoral Conditions: A Conversation with María Corina Machado

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El Salvador’s 2024 Elections: Voting in a One-Party State?

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Rescheduled: The Future of the Barbados Accords: Holding the Maduro Regime Accountable

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Progress and Possibility: Reflecting on 75 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

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Democracy and the Catholic Church in Nicaragua

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Join CSIS for an event on centering human rights values within Ukraine's post-war digitalization.

Event — February 22, 2024

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Join the Human Rights Initiative for a discussion of the impact of the global labor rights movement on American workers, businesses, and consumers. 

Event — February 21, 2024

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This week on Babel, Jon Alterman speaks with Amb. David Satterfield about the crisis in Gaza, the challenges of getting aid to civilians, and the role of humanitarian assistance in ending the conflict. 

CSIS Babel

Join the CSIS Americas Program for the launch of a new report assessing China's role in democratic backsliding observed in Latin America and the Caribbean, followed by an in-depth expert discussion on democracy, autocracy, and the evolving role of China in the Western Hemisphere.

Event — February 15, 2024

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Please join the Americas Program for a conversation with Venezuelan opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado.

Event — February 14, 2024

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A short, spoken-word summary from CSIS’s Lauren Burke on her report with Martin Flacks, Caitlin Chin-Rothmann, Julia Brock, and Iryna Tiasko, Ukraine’s Rapid Digitalization: Human Rights Risks and Opportunities in a Postwar Environment .

Audio Briefs

This report outlines four strategies to center human rights values within Ukraine's post-conflict digital governance framework as the government of Ukraine and its international partners begin planning for reconstruction.

Photo: ImagineWorld/Adobe Stock

CSIS Americas associate director Juliana Rubio discusses the Petro administration's security policy and contends that a focus on human security is a step in the right direction.

 Photo: Manuel Hernandez/Vizzor Image/Getty Images

Please join the Americas Program for a timely conversation on elections and the future of democracy in El Salvador.

Event — January 29, 2024

Photo: MARVIN RECINOS/AFP via Getty Images

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World Report 2023

Our annual review of human rights around the globe

A New Model for Global Leadership on Human Rights

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TiranaHassan

The obvious conclusion to draw from the litany of human rights crises in 2022—from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deliberate attacks on civilians in Ukraine and Xi Jinping’s open-air prison for the Uyghurs in China to the Taliban’s putting millions of Afghans at risk of starvation —is that unchecked authoritarian power leaves behind a sea of human suffering. But 2022 also revealed a fundamental shift in power in the world that opens the way for all concerned governments to push back against these abuses by protecting and strengthening the global human rights system, especially when the actions of the major powers fall short or are problematic.

We have witnessed world leaders cynically trading away human rights obligations and accountability for human rights abusers in exchange for seeming short-term political wins. US presidential candidate Joe Biden’s principled pledge to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah state” over its human rights record was eviscerated once he was in office and facing high gas prices by his bro-like fist bump with Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Bin Salman. And the Biden administration, despite its rhetoric about prioritizing democracy and human rights in Asia, has tempered criticism of abuses and increasing authoritarianism in India, Thailand, the Philippines, and elsewhere in the region for security and economic reasons, instead of recognizing that all are linked.

Of course, these kinds of double standards are not solely the purview of global superpowers. Pakistan has supported the United Nations high commissioner for human rights’ monitoring of abuses in Muslim-majority Kashmir, but owing to its close relationship with China, has turned its back on possible crimes against humanity against Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang. Pakistan’s hypocrisy is especially glaring given its coordinator role of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Human rights crises do not arise from nowhere. Governments that fail to live up to their legal obligations to protect human rights at home sow the seeds of discontent, instability, and ultimately crisis. Left unchecked, the egregious actions of abusive governments escalate, cementing the belief that corruption, censorship, impunity, and violence are the most effective tools to achieve their aims. Ignoring human rights violations carries a heavy cost, and the ripple effects should not be underestimated.

But in a world of shifting power, we also found opportunity in preparing our 2023 World Report, which examines the state of human rights in nearly 100 countries. Each issue needs to be understood and addressed on its own merits, and each requires leadership. Any state that recognizes the power that comes from working in concert with others to affect human rights change can provide that leadership. There is more space, not less, for governments to stand up and adopt rights-respecting plans of action.

New coalitions and new voices of leadership have emerged that can shape and further this trend. South Africa, Namibia, and Indonesia have paved the way for more governments to recognize that Israeli authorities are committing the crime against humanity of apartheid against Palestinians.

LEFT: Girls in a bedroom of their house damaged by Saudi-led air strikes on a nearby military site in Sanaa, Yemen, January 19, 2022. © 2022 Khaled Abdullah/Reuters RIGHT: Palestinian children who have returned to their neighborhood observe the damage from their home which was struck by an Israeli attack in Gaza City on May 21, 2021.

Pacific Island nations as a bloc have demanded more ambitious emissions reductions from those countries that are polluting the most, while Vanuatu leads an effort to put the adverse effects of climate change before the International Court of Justice for their own sake—and ours.

And while the US Supreme Court struck down 50 years of federal protection for reproductive rights, the “green wave” of abortion-rights expansions in Latin America—notably Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico—offers a compelling counternarrative.

Abortion-rights supporters in Bogotá celebrate

This is the overarching lesson of our ever-more disrupted world: we need to reimagine how power in the world is exercised, and that all governments not only have the opportunity but the responsibility to take action to protect human rights within and beyond their borders.

Ukraine: Beacon and Rebuke

Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February and ensuing atrocities quickly rose to the top of the world’s human rights agenda in 2022. After Ukrainian troops forced the Russian military’s withdrawal from Bucha, north of the capital, Kyiv, the UN found that at least 70 civilians had been the victims of unlawful killings, including summary executions, which are war crimes. This pattern of Russian atrocity has been repeated countless times.

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A man pushes his bike through debris and destroyed Russian military vehicles in Bucha, Ukraine, northwest of Kyiv, on April 6, 2022. Human Rights Watch documented numerous  apparent war crimes by Russian forces during their occupation of Bucha from March 12-31, 2022.

A mass grave is exhumed by Ukrainian authorities on April 8, 2022, as they attempt to identify the bodies of civilians who lost their lives during the Russian occupation of Bucha, Ukraine.

Fleeing families arrive at the main train station in Ukraine’s eastern city of Kramatorsk, in Donbas region, April 3, 2022.

At the Drama Theater in Mariupol, hundreds of displaced residents took refuge, painting the Russian word “DETI” (children) on the ground outside in letters so large they could be seen in satellite imagery. This alert was meant to protect the civilians, including many children, sheltering inside. Instead, it seemed only to serve as an inducement for Russian forces whose bombs destroyed the building and killed at least a dozen, and likely more, of its occupants. Inflicting civilian suffering, such as the repeated strikes on the energy infrastructure that Ukrainians depend on for electricity, water, and heat, seems to be a central part of the Kremlin’s strategy.

Putin’s brazenness has been made possible largely because of his longstanding free hand to operate with impunity. The loss of civilian life in Ukraine comes as no surprise to Syrians who suffered grave abuses from airstrikes following Russia’s intervention to support Syrian forces under Bashar al-Assad in 2015. Putin tapped prominent military commanders from that campaign to lead the war effort in Ukraine, with predictable—and devastating—consequences for Ukrainian civilians. Russia has accompanied its brutal military actions in Ukraine with a crackdown on human rights and anti-war activists in Russia, throttling dissent and any criticism of Putin’s rule.

But one positive outcome of Russia’s actions has been to activate the full global human rights system created to deal with crises like this. The UN Human Rights Council promptly opened an investigation to document and preserve evidence of human rights violations in the war, and later created a special rapporteur to monitor the human rights situation inside Russia. The UN General Assembly four times condemned—mostly by wide margins—both Russia’s invasion and its human rights violations. The General Assembly also suspended Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, blunting its spoiler capacity on Ukraine and other serious human rights crises on the council’s docket.

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The UN General Assembly passes a resolution suspending Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, New York City, April 7, 2022.

European countries welcomed millions of Ukrainian refugees, a commendable response that also exposed the double standards of most European Union member countries in their ongoing treatment of countless Syrians, Afghans, Palestinians, Somalis, and others seeking asylum. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague opened a Ukraine investigation following a referral of the situation by an unprecedented number of the court’s member countries. Governments have also mobilized to weaken Putin’s global influence and military power, with the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and others imposing targeted international sanctions against Russian individuals, companies, and other entities.

This extraordinary response showed what is possible for accountability, for refugee protection, and for safeguarding the human rights of some of the world’s most vulnerable people. At the same time, the attacks on civilians and horrendous abuses in Ukraine should be a reminder that this consolidated support, critical as it is, should not be confused with a quick fix.

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Activists and relatives of Syrians suspected of being detained or forcibly disappeared by the Syrian government pose with portraits of missing Syrians during a demonstration in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on May 7, 2022.

Rather, governments should reflect on where the situation would be if the international community had made a concerted effort to hold Putin to account much earlier—in 2014, at the onset of the war in eastern Ukraine; in 2015, for abuses in Syria; or for the escalating human rights crackdown within Russia over the last decade. The challenge going forward is for governments to replicate the best of the international response in Ukraine and scale up the political will to address other crises around the world until there is meaningful human rights improvement.

Achieving Accountability in Ethiopia

The armed conflict in northern Ethiopia has received only a tiny fraction of the global attention focused on Ukraine, despite two years of atrocities, including a number of massacres, by the warring parties.

In 2020, tensions between Ethiopia’s federal government and Tigray’s regional authorities, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), boiled over into conflict in the Tigray region, with Amhara regional forces and Eritrea’s military supporting the Ethiopian armed forces. The government has heavily restricted access to conflict-affected areas for independent rights investigators and journalists ever since, making scrutiny of abuses as they unfold difficult, even as the conflict spread to the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.

Governments and the UN have condemned the summary killings, widespread sexual violence, and pillage, but have done little else. An ethnic cleansing campaign against the Tigrayan population in Western Tigray resulted in many deaths, sexual violence, mass detention, and the forced displacement of thousands. The government’s effective siege of the Tigray region continued through 2022, denying the civilian population access to food, medicine, and life-saving humanitarian aid, as well as electricity, banking, and communication, in violation of international law.

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A bus carrying civilians passes a destroyed tank outside Mekelle, the capital of Ethiopia's Tigray region, on June 29, 2021. 

A woman sits at a school being used to house people displaced by fighting, in the city of Mekelle in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region on June 27, 2021.

People collect water from a tank in a compound of abandoned buildings, where internally displaced people are sheltered, near the town of Dubti, in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, June 7, 2022.

The three elected African members of the UN Security Council—Gabon, Ghana, and Kenya—as well as Russia and China, have blocked even placing Ethiopia on its formal agenda for discussion, despite the council’s mandate to maintain and restore international peace and security.

Governments have also hesitated to adopt targeted sanctions against Ethiopian entities and individuals responsible for abuses. International scrutiny has instead rested with the UN Human Rights Council, which narrowly renewed the mandate of the mechanism it created in December 2021 to investigate and preserve evidence of grave abuses and identify those responsible. However, Ethiopian federal authorities continue to block its work fiercely.

A 10-day African Union-led peace process culminated in November in a truce between the Ethiopian federal government and Tigrayan authorities, which offers an opportunity for outside states to play a leadership role in supporting solutions that can break deadly cycles of violence and impunity. With pathways for domestic accountability elusive, international monitoring of the agreement is needed, along with credible efforts to hold accountable those responsible for wartime abuses.

The agreement’s key backers and observers, including the AU, UN, and US, should signal and maintain pressure to ensure that independent investigative organizations can access conflict areas, and document and preserve evidence. Accountability for these crimes needs to remain a priority so victims and their families can obtain a measure of justice and reparations.

A Brighter Spotlight on Beijing

Chinese President Xi Jinping secured a precedent-breaking third term as head of the Chinese Communist Party in October, setting himself up as a “leader for life,” and all but ensuring the Chinese government’s unrelenting hostility to human rights protections will continue. Xi has surrounded himself with loyalists and doubled down on building a security state, deepening rights violations across the country.

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A display showing images of Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Museum of the Communist Party, on October 13, 2022, in Beijing, China. The ruling Communist Party of China opened its 20th Party Congress on October 16, when Xi Jinping secured a third term in power.

Security personnel stand in front of people lined up for tests to detect Covid-19 at a mass testing site in Beijing, China, January 24, 2022.

Members of the Muslim Uyghur minority present pictures of their relatives detained in China during a press conference in Istanbul, May 10, 2022. Turkey's Uyghur community urged United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet to probe so-called re-education camps.

In the Xinjiang region, Beijing’s mass detention of an estimated one million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims—who are subject to torture, political indoctrination, and forced labor—and severe restrictions on rights to religion, expression, and culture for the general population, stand out for their gravity, scale, and cruelty. The UN found that violations in Xinjiang could amount to crimes against humanity, echoing the findings of Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups.

The rigorous report of the then-UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, based on years of investigation and the Chinese government’s internal documents, laws, policies, data, and policy statements, created a critical common reference point from which governments should act. That the report was released only in the final minutes of Bachelet’s term is indicative of Beijing’s intense pressure to bury it.

The report sparked notable diplomatic mobilization. A resolution to open a debate about the report was introduced in the Human Rights Council and fell short by only two votes. The result reflected Beijing’s pressure on governments like Indonesia—which said we “must not close our eyes” to the plight of Uyghurs and then voted “no”—as well as its influence on the actions of those states that abstained, including Argentina, India, Mexico, and Brazil. But the “yes” votes of Somalia, Honduras, and Paraguay, and the co-sponsorship support of Turkey and Albania, together with 24 mostly Western countries, show the potential in cross-regional alliances and fresh coalitions to come together to challenge the Chinese government’s expectation of impunity.

The collective spotlight on the dismal human rights situation in Xinjiang has put Beijing on the defensive, and the Chinese government is working hard to explain away its heinous behavior. The outcome in Geneva heightens the responsibility of the UN leadership to throw its full political weight behind the report and to continue to monitor, document, and report on the situation in Xinjiang, and more broadly in China. Anything less would be an abdication of the human rights pillar of the UN system’s responsibility to protect Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang.

Meanwhile, as discomfort around the Chinese government’s repressive ambitions has grown, governments, including those of Australia, Japan, Canada, the UK, EU, and US have looked to cultivate trade and security alliances with India, taking cover behind its brand as the “world’s largest democracy.” But Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has mimicked many of the same abuses that have enabled Chinese state repression—systematic discrimination against religious minorities, stifling of peaceful dissent, and use of technology to suppress free expression—to tighten its grip on power.

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Hijab-wearing students arrive to attend classes as a policewoman stands guard outside a government school after the recent hijab ban, in Udupi town in the southern state of Karnataka, India, February 16, 2022.

The seemingly careless trade-off on human rights that world leaders make, justified as the cost of doing business, ignores the longer-term implications of their compromises. Deepening ties with the Modi government while avoiding its troubling rights record squanders valuable leverage to protect the precious, but increasingly endangered, civic space on which India’s democracy relies.

Respect for Rights as a Prescription for Stability

Autocrats benefit from the illusion they project as being indispensable to maintaining stability, which in turn seemingly justifies their oppression and widespread human-rights violations committed toward achieving that end.

But this “stability,” driven by the endless quest for power and control, infects and erodes every pillar needed for a functional society based on the rule of law. The result is frequently massive corruption, a broken economy, and a hopelessly partisan judiciary. Vital civic space is dismantled, with activists and independent journalists in jail, in hiding, or fearing retaliation.

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Hasmik Tutunjian uses chargeable lights in her living room during power cuts in Beirut, Lebanon, August 26, 2022.

The months-long protests in Iran in 2022 underline the grave risks for autocracies of imagining that repression is a shortcut to stability. Protests erupted across the country in response to the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa (Jina) Amini in September, following her arrest by “morality police” for wearing an “improper hijab.” But protest against the mandatory use of the hijab is just the most visible symbol of repression. The new generation of protesters across the country echoes the frustrations of generations past: people tired of living without fundamental rights, and of being ruled by those who callously disregard the welfare of their people.

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A protester in Istanbul, Turkey, holds a portrait of Mahsa (Jina) Amini during a demonstration on September 20, 2022. The death of Amini in Tehran, Iran, after being arrested by the “morality police” for wearing an “improper hijab” sparked protests in Iran and around the world. 

The demand for equality triggered by women and schoolgirls has morphed into a nationwide movement by the Iranian people against a government that has systematically denied them their rights, mismanaged the economy, and driven people into poverty. Iranian authorities have ruthlessly cracked down on what became widespread anti-government protests with excessive and lethal force, followed by sham trials and death sentences for those who dare challenge the government’s authority. Hints that authorities may disband the morality police fall well short of the demand to abolish the discriminatory compulsory hijab laws, and even further from the fundamental structural reforms the protesters are demanding to make the government more accountable.

The link between impunity for abuses and mismanaged governance can be seen elsewhere. Shortages in fuel, food, and other essentials, including medicine, sparked massive protests in Sri Lanka, forcing Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, and then his brother, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to resign. Unfortunately, the man who parliament chose to replace them, Ranil Wickremasinghe, has walked away from commitments to justice and accountability for egregious violations committed during the country’s 26-year civil war, which ended in 2009. President Wickremasinghe, instead of focusing on the economic crisis and ensuring social justice, cracked down on protests, even using the notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act to detain student activists.

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Soldiers with gas masks deployed behind barriers as protesters gather in Colombo demanding the resignation of Sri Lanka's President Gotabaya Rajapaksa over the country's crippling economic crisis, May 28, 2022.

Cracks have also emerged in the foundations of seemingly impenetrable countries. In November, mounting frustration over Beijing’s strict lockdown measures as part of its “zero Covid” strategy spilled over into the streets, with protesters in cities across the country denouncing the Communist Party’s draconian measures and, in some cases, Xi’s rule. These remarkable shows of defiance, led mostly by young people and young women, demonstrate that desires for human rights cannot be erased despite the enormous resources the Chinese government has devoted to repressing them.

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Protesters hold up white pieces of paper during a demonstration in Beijing against China’s “zero Covid-19" measures, November 27, 2022. 

It is easy to celebrate the protesters who take the fight for human rights to the streets. But we cannot expect the protesters to diagnose the problems—which they do at great risk to themselves and their families—and to hold those responsible for the deprivations they have suffered to account by themselves. Rights-respecting governments need to lend their political stamina and attention to ensure that needed human rights change comes to fruition. Governments should live up to their global human rights responsibilities, not just ponder and posture about them.

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Demonstrators link arms at an unauthorized protest in Lenin Square, Novosibirsk, Russia, against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Consider Sudan, whose people’s revolution of 2018-19 challenged the abusive power structure that repressed the country for decades. The two-year joint civilian-military transition that led the country was sabotaged by a military coup in late 2021, putting Sudanese autocrats and military commanders implicated in serious abuses—some of whom are once again committing abuses—in charge of the country’s future.

But Sudanese grassroots Resistance Committees—pro-democracy civilian groups created out of the 2018 revolution—persist, despite deadly crackdowns. These groups insist on a civilian-only transition and want those responsible for abuses to be held to account. In December, political actors reached a preliminary agreement with the military coup leaders, postponing discussions on justice and security sector reforms to a later stage, but protesters and victims’ groups have rejected the deal.  

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Demonstrators outside the home of a protester who had been killed days earlier in Khartoum, Sudan. Hundreds of loosely connected "resistance committees" organized nonviolent protests, calling for civilian rule in Sudan, January 27, 2022.

If Sudan is to move toward a more rights-respecting future, the demands of these groups, including calls for justice and an end to impunity for those in command, should be a priority of the US, UN, EU, and regional partners in engaging with Sudan’s military leadership. Those who staged a coup to obtain power will not give it up without deterrents or financial costs.

Similarly, centering the demands of the millions of people pressing for human rights and democratic civilian rule in Myanmar remains critical to addressing the ongoing crisis. In February 2021, Myanmar’s military staged a coup and has brutally suppressed widespread opposition ever since. For two years, the military junta has carried out systematic abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and sexual violence, that amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.

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Police arrest a protester in Yangon, Myanmar, on March 27, 2021.

Myanmar citizens living in India hold placards during a protest in New Delhi against the military coup in Myanmar and supporting recognition of the National Unity Government of Myanmar, February 22, 2022.

Refugees, who fled fighting between the Myanmar army and non-state armed groups and settled temporarily on the bank of the Moei River, receive aid from Thailand on the Thai-Myanmar border, in Mae Sot, Thailand, January 6, 2022.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) produced a “Five Point Consensus”—negotiated between the bloc and Myanmar’s junta—to address the crisis in the country. It has failed, with several ASEAN countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore acknowledging the junta’s refusal to comply. Since the coup, ASEAN has barred Myanmar junta representatives from the bloc’s high-level meetings. Beyond that, ASEAN has imposed minimal pressure on Myanmar, while other powerful governments, including those of the US and UK, hide behind regional deference to justify their own limited action.

To achieve a different result, ASEAN needs to adopt a different approach. In September, Malaysia’s then-Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah was the first ASEAN official to meet openly with representatives of Myanmar’s opposition National Unity Government, formed by elected lawmakers, ethnic minority representatives, and civil society activists after the coup. The bloc should follow suit and extend its engagement to representatives of civil society.

ASEAN should also intensify pressure on Myanmar by aligning with international efforts to cut off the junta’s foreign currency revenue and weapons purchases, which would in turn weaken Myanmar’s military. As ASEAN chair in 2023, Indonesia should lead a review of the junta’s human rights record and failure to comply with the Five-Point Consensus and consider suspending Myanmar to uphold the bloc’s commitment to a “people-oriented, people-centered ASEAN.”

Human Rights Can Define—and Design—the Path Ahead

Another year of shrinking real and virtual civic space around the world brings the recognition that attacks on the human rights system are due in part to its effectiveness—because by exposing the abuses and elevating the voices of survivors and those at risk, the human rights movement makes it harder for abusive governments to succeed.

In 2022, six weeks into the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities summarily shuttered the Human Rights Watch office in Moscow after 30 years of continuous operation, together with those of more than a dozen foreign nongovernmental organizations. The closures followed a decade of repressive laws and measures that the Russian government adopted to decimate civil society and force hundreds of activists, journalists, human rights lawyers, and other critics into exile. The Kremlin has gone to such great lengths to extinguish dissent because dissent threatens it. And therein lies a fundamental truth: those who work assiduously to repress human rights show their weakness, not their strength.

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The logo of one of Russia’s leading human rights groups, Memorial, in its former office in Moscow, December 29, 2021. Russian authorities forcibly closed Memorial in 2022.

Time and again, human rights prove to be a powerful lens through which to view the most existential threats we face, like climate change. From Pakistan to Nigeria to Australia, every corner of the world faces a nearly nonstop cycle of catastrophic weather events that will intensify because of climate change, alongside slow onset changes like sea-level rise. In simple terms, we are seeing the cost of government inaction, a continued assault by big polluters, and the toll on communities, with those already marginalized paying the highest price.

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Razia, 25, and her 6-month-old daughter, Tamanna, sit in front of a fan to cool off during a heatwave, in Jacobabad, Pakistan, May 15, 2022.

People canoe along flooded residential streets after a heavy downpour in Bayelsa, Nigeria, October 20, 2022.

Houses surrounded by floodwater in Lismore, Australia, March 31, 2022.

The unbreakable link between people and nature has been recognized by the UN General Assembly, which last year confirmed the universality of the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. With the destructive effects of climate change intensifying around the world, there is a legal and moral imperative for government officials to regulate the industries whose business models are incompatible with protecting basic rights.

To stave off the worst effects of climate change and confront the human rights toll at all stages of their operations, governments need to urgently work to implement a just transition to phase out fossil fuels and prevent agribusiness from continuing to raze the world’s forests. At the same time, governments should act with urgency in upholding human rights in their responses to climate extremes and slow-onset changes that are already inevitable, protecting those populations most at risk, including Indigenous peoples, women, children, older people, people with disabilities, and people living in poverty.

human rights research project

A child near by a coal mine while smoke rises from the Duvha coal-based power station owned by the state power utility Eskom, in Emalahleni, Mpumalanga province, South Africa, June 2, 2021.

Many of these communities are also leading the charge to protect their ways of life and their homes against coal, oil, and gas operations that pollute the water they rely on to cook, clean, and drink, and result in the rising of the seas that engulf the lands where they live. Centering frontline communities and environmental defenders is one of the most powerful ways to push back against corporate and government activities that harm the environment and protect critical ecosystems needed to address the climate crisis.

Indigenous forest defenders are critical to the protection of the Brazilian Amazon, an ecosystem vital for slowing climate change by storing carbon. Rather than supporting them, the administration of then-President Jair Bolsonaro enabled illegal deforestation and weakened Indigenous rights protections. The spectacular environmental destruction during his four-year term went hand-in-hand with serious rights violations, including violence and intimidation against those who tried to stop it.

human rights research project

Indigenous people call for greater protection of their land and rights at the  Acampamento Terra Livre  (Free Land Camp) in Brasilia, an annual protest held by Indigenous peoples from throughout Brazil, April 6, 2022. 

Brazil’s newly elected president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has pledged to reduce Amazon deforestation to zero and defend Indigenous rights. During his previous two terms from 2003 to 2010, deforestation dropped dramatically, but his administration also promoted dams and other infrastructure projects with high environmental and social impacts in the Amazon. President Lula’s ability to deliver on his climate and human rights commitments are critical for Brazil and the world.

A New International Embrace of Human Rights

The magnitude, scale, and frequency of human rights crises across the globe show the urgency of a new framing and new model for action. Viewing our greatest challenges and threats to the modern world through a human rights lens reveals not only the root causes of disruption but also offers guidance to address them.

LEFT: Girls study in a secret school at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan, July 25, 2022. © 2022 Daniel Leal/AFP RIGHT: Ibrahim, a 5-year-old boy with autism, is held by his father in Idlib, Syria, June 2022. Children with disabilities caught up in the Syrian war are at greater risk of harm and lack access to basic health care, education, humanitarian aid, assistive devices, and psychosocial support. © 2022 Human Rights Watch

Every government has the obligation to protect and promote respect for human rights. After years of piecemeal and often half-hearted efforts on behalf of civilians under threat in places including Yemen, Afghanistan, and South Sudan, the world’s mobilization around Ukraine reminds us of the extraordinary potential when governments realize their human rights responsibilities on a global scale. All governments should bring the same spirit of solidarity to the multitude of human rights crises around the globe, and not just when it suits their interests.

Protecting Rights, Saving Lives

Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people in close to 100 countries worldwide, spotlighting abuses and bringing perpetrators to justice

Human Rights Technology

Helping communities take evidence-based action in the fight against human rights violations

Human rights are universal – every person on the planet is entitled to the same rights and freedoms that enable a life of dignity. In any given society, however, and especially across global society, the enjoyment and realization of human rights is not uniform. Human rights deficits are pervasive, disproportionately affecting some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations around the world. In many cases, they are also perpetuated by the systematic exploitation of people (e.g., human trafficking) or power (e.g., corruption) for private gain. How can we work towards a future in which such organized violations of human rights are no longer possible?

In Microsoft Research Special Projects (opens in new tab) , we tackle societal problems through use-inspired basic research (opens in new tab) – collaborating with domain experts and frontline organizations to envision technology solutions that would fundamentally transform real-world practice for the better, yet which require fundamental research advances to achieve. In the context of Human Rights Technology, this means combining our expertise in HCI, data science, and engineering to create human-centered data technologies that are ready for immediate use in specific human rights contexts, as well as future use in other contexts affected by similar data challenges.

Our work focuses on human trafficking and corruption as urgent problem areas where new technology has the potential to make a significant impact now and into the future, given the sizeable communities and substantial relevant data that already exist. Despite this potential, however, the use of data to motivate collective action across either community remains challenging in practice. For example, victim case records contain valuable evidence on the nature of human trafficking, but privacy and safety concerns mean that datasets typically remain unshared. Similarly, open government data contains valuable evidence on how actors and entities participate in corruption, but deliberate suppression of incriminating relationships means that risks typically remain undetected.

In both cases, and for organized forms of exploitation in general, our collaborations with domain experts suggest the need for a new class of transparency-enhancing technologies designed from the ground up with human rights use cases, users, and stakeholders in mind. Our technology portfolio currently comprises three examples of such technology, designed to tackle complementary aspects of the same target problem:

  • Synthetic Data Showcase (opens in new tab) for safe and private data sharing, creating the data transparency needed for collective understanding of rights violations;
  • Transparency Engine (opens in new tab) for implicit relationship mapping, creating the risk transparency needed for targeted action against networks of rights violators;
  • ShowWhy (opens in new tab) for causal decision making, creating the impact transparency needed for evidence-based policy in the fight against human rights violations.

We have also co-founded major industry and company initiatives that provide real-world context for the design of such technologies, as well as partnerships with the government and civil society organizations that enable use, feedback, and impact at scale:

  • Tech Against Trafficking (opens in new tab) (TAT), an industry coalition of technology companies collaborating with global experts to help eradicate human trafficking using technology;
  • Microsoft ACTS (Advanced Cloud Transparency Services), a CELA program mobilizing the power of data and technology to help governments accelerate transparency.

More information can be found using the links below or by contacting Darren Edge (opens in new tab) .

Return to this project page and check for future updates via https://aka.ms/humanrightstechnology (opens in new tab) .

  • Open source code (opens in new tab) (GitHub)
  • Public utility web app (opens in new tab) (GitHub IO)
  • PAC-Synth (opens in new tab) (SmartNoise DP synthesizer)
  • The CTDC global synthetic dataset (opens in new tab) (current CTDC data release)
  • IOM releases the Global Synthetic Dataset (opens in new tab) (IOM publication)
  • IOM-Microsoft release the first public dataset on victims and perpetrators of trafficking (opens in new tab) (IOM press release)
  • IOM and Microsoft release first-ever differentially private synthetic dataset to counter human trafficking (MSR blog)
  • IOM-Microsoft collaboration enables release of largest public dataset to bolster fight against human trafficking (opens in new tab) (IOM press release)
  • Real-world evidence and the path from data to impact (MSR blog)
  • Synthetic data set of human trafficking victims could allow big data work without privacy compromises (opens in new tab) (TechCrunch)
  • New Microsoft analytics tools help identify and understand trends without compromising privacy (opens in new tab) (TechRepublic)
  • US Department of State Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report (opens in new tab) (2023)
  • Revealing the hidden structure of corruption (MSR Societal Resilience)
  • Microsoft ACTS and Microsoft Research (ACTS Feature)
  • Shining a light on beneficial ownership (ACTS Feature)
  • Can artificial intelligence stop corruption in its tracks? (opens in new tab) (World Bank blog)
  • Spectral embedding and the latent geometry of multipartite networks (opens in new tab) (arXiv)
  • Spectral embedding for dynamic networks with stability guarantees (opens in new tab) (NeurIPS 2021)
  • Matrix factorisation and the interpretation of geodesic distance (opens in new tab) (NeurIPS 2021)
  • Graph AI for organizational analytics (opens in new tab) (MSR Special Projects)
  • A Causal AI suite for decision-making (NeurIPS 2022 workshop)
  • Microsoft is teaching computers to understand cause and effect (opens in new tab) (TechRepublic)
  • Introduction to ShowWhy, user interfaces for causal decision making (opens in new tab) (YouTube)
  • Update on Microsoft causal open-source libraries (Community workshop)
  • Tutorial: Translating real-world data into evidence (MSR Research Summit)
  • Tech Against Trafficking (opens in new tab) (Homepage)
  • Tech Against Trafficking (opens in new tab) (BSR initiative page)
  • Case study: Tech Against Trafficking (MSR Societal Resilience)
  • Technology demo: Using technology to combat human trafficking (MSR Research Summit 2021)
  • Tech-driven insight to address labor exploitation: TAT launches third accelerator (opens in new tab) (2023 launch)
  • Tech Against Trafficking Summit: How to leverage innovation to tackle modern slavery (opens in new tab) (2022 summit)
  • Tech Against Trafficking concludes the second accelerator (opens in new tab) (2021-2022 showcase)
  • Tech Against Trafficking launches second accelerator program (opens in new tab) (2021-2022 launch)
  • Accelerating toward data insights: Tech Against Trafficking successfully concludes its pilot accelerator (opens in new tab) (2019-2020 showcase)
  • Scaling impact: Tech Against Trafficking launches accelerator program (opens in new tab) (2019-2020 launch)
  • OSCE today launched ground-breaking study analyzing more than 300 anti-trafficking tech tools (opens in new tab) (OSCE press release)
  • Leveraging innovation to fight trafficking in human beings: a comprehensive analysis of technology tools (opens in new tab) (OSCE report)
  • Interactive map of anti-trafficking technology tools (opens in new tab) (TAT tool)
  • Data challenges impacting human trafficking research and development of anti-trafficking technological tools (opens in new tab) (2022)
  • The role of technology in countering trafficking in persons (opens in new tab) (2020)
  • Report of the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery (UN General Assembly) (opens in new tab) (2023)
  • Microsoft ACTS (Homepage)
  • Tackling corruption with transparency and technology. Part 2: Building data tools for increased transparency (ACTS Feature)
  • Tackling corruption with transparency and technology. Part 1: Making a difference with data (ACTS Feature)
  • Microsoft ACTS and Open Ownership focus on global data standard to boost beneficial ownership transparency (ACTS Spotlight)
  • Microsoft ACTS and Open Contracting Partnership join to increase transparency with advanced data solutions (ACTS Spotlight)
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Global Affairs

Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute

Human rights research and data hub.

The Human Rights Research and Data Hub (HuRRD) seeks to advance human rights research at UConn by supporting faculty and student projects and providing students the opportunity to develop research and data analysis skills that will advance their careers after graduation. Our work includes: 

  • Providing start-up funding for new research projects on a competitive basis to enhance the capacity of faculty to secure external grants
  • Supporting long-standing signature projects, including the award-winning Socioeconomic Rights Fulfillment (SERF) Index and other data collection projects designed to fill critical gaps in the observation and measurement of human rights phenomena
  • Convening workshops and seminars to facilitate discussion and feedback on ongoing projects
  • Engaging in a variety of forms of outreach to amplify awareness of Hub-affiliated projects and communicate the lessons drawn from the research to the policymakers and the public

Upcoming Events

Past events.

What’s Business Got to do With It? The Role of the Private Sector in Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding February 22, 2024 | 12:00 PM - 1:15 PM | Online Co-sponsored by Human Rights Research and Data Hub (HuRRD) Businesses of all sizes play many roles in armed conflict, repression and other situations that lead to widespread human rights violations. Yet, when the violence ends and the arms are put down, only a handful of governments have considered how to involve companies in their transitional justice processes. This paper offers a taxonomy to help classify the different types of roles that companies play in episodes of the break-down of the rule of law and violent conflict and argues that this approach encourages governments to widen their focus to include the private sector in forward-looking peacebuilding processes such as community reconciliation, collective reparations, institutional reform, and even development.   Filling the Gaps: Measuring Respect for Children’s Rights around the World February 23, 2024 | 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM | Hybrid Co-sponsored by Economic and Social Rights Group (ESRG) The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in history. Despite broad international support for the norms outlined within the treaty, children’s rights around the world fail to be fully respected. Three decades after the CRC entered into force, it is more important than ever to hold states accountable to their treaty obligations. To do this, we must have a clear and comprehensive metric of how well states are meeting the obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill children’s rights. Thus, in this project, we develop a new measure of children’s rights that incorporates the themes outlined in the CRC.   Petitioning for Progress: How Victims of Human Rights Abuse Participate in the United Nations January 25, 2024 | 12:030 pm - 1:45 pm | In-person Join us for lunch and to hear author Rachel Schoner discuss how victims of humans rights abuse participate in international politics and what effect they have on respect for human rights.   ‘We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age’ Discussion with Author Wendy Wong October 3, 2023 | 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm | Hybrid Co-hosted by the Economic & Social Rights Program, Business & Human Rights Initiative, Engineering for Human Rights Initiative, Human Rights Research & Data Hub, and the UConn School of Law Presenter: Prof. Wendy Wong, The University of British Columbia Political scientist Wendy Wong rallies for extending human rights beyond our physical selves and rebooting rights in our data-intensive world.   Ethical Dilemmas: Corporate Response and Market Reaction to the Russia-Ukraine War September 19, 2023 | 12:30 pm - 1:45 pm | Hybrid Co-hosted by the Business & Human Rights Initiative, Economic & Social Rights Program, and Human Rights Research & Data Hub Presenter: Prof. Lingling Wang, UConn School of Business Discussant:   Bennett Freeman, Principal, Bennett Freeman Associates LLC In this Business & Human Rights Workshop, join Lingling Wang (UConn School of Business) for a presentation and discussion on the ethical considerations for foreign companies operating in Russia in essential human needs industries.

Supporting Human Rights Practice

HuRRD is central to HRI’s focus on bridging scholarship and practice. With faculty based in departments across the social sciences, humanities, STEM fields, business, and more, we offer an unparalleled interdisciplinary approach to human rights scholarship and aim to:

  • Make our research legible to the public and project data broadly accessible
  • Communicate key implications to inform evidence-based policy and program design
  • Facilitate and support research collaborations across disciplines to bring the variety of complementary perspectives and methodological approaches to bear on critical human rights issues 

HuRRD for Students

Students engage with HuRRD through human rights research courses and/or paid research positions. Our curated research courses are designed to train students in empirical research design, data analysis and visualization, and the analytical skills to answer important questions through interpreting evidence from a variety of data sources. By involving students centrally in the research process, the Hub contributes to developing the next generation of human rights scholars and practitioners by offering valuable training in advanced data analysis and research methods, hands-on experience, networking, and publishing opportunities – all of which enhance career prospects and potential for advancement long after graduation. 

Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin

Director, Human Rights Research and Data Hub Assistant Research Professor, Human Rights, Engineering & Business

[email protected]

cesar abadia

César Abadía-Barrero

Associate Professor, Anthropology & Human Rights

[email protected]

Davis Chacon Hurtado

Davis Chacon Hurtado

Assistant Research Professor, Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute

[email protected]

Erica Laplante

Erica Laplante

Director, Human Rights Research and Data Hub and Postdoctoral Research Associate, Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute

[email protected]

Susan Randolph

Susan Randolph

Emerita Professor, Economics

[email protected]

david richards

David Richards

Director of Graduate Programs, Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute Associate Professor, Political Science & Human Rights

[email protected]

Michael Rubin

Director, Human Rights Research and Data Hub Assistant Research Professor, Human Rights, Engineering & Business

human rights research project

Cory Runstedler

Graduate Assistant

[email protected]

human rights research project

Christopher Shay

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, Human Rights Research and Data Hub

[email protected]

 Home

Research projects

Digital welfare, “don't take it personal” - privacy and information in an algorithmic age, how do danes perceive surveillance, the commercialized public sphere.

FRAME: An interdisciplinary and collaborative research project

FRAME: “Fostering Human Rights Among European (External and Internal) Policies”.

The role of state actors of the national human rights system, governmental human rights focal points, the interaction between international, regional and domestic human rights systems, the arab master programme on democracy and human rights, seminar series and book on the european charter of fundamental rights, national human rights institutions: effectiveness and good practices.

Network for human rights researchers in Denmark

Network for human rights researchers in Denmark

State cooperation preventing access to asylum, international military operations.

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LSE Human Rights Past Research Projects

Human rights. human remains.

Dr Claire Moon  currently holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award for her project 'Human Rights, Human Remains: forensic humanitarianism and the politics of the grave' (2018 - 2021). This project explores the ‘forensic turn’ in humanitarianism and the effort to establish the identities and causes of death of the mass victims of atrocities such as enforced disappearance, torture, genocide and war crimes. 

Exhumations and forensic identification carry enormous social force. They represent a powerful way of establishing the truth. Yet forensic identification is a social act and interacts with legal, political and humanitarian imperatives which include accountability, combatting political and cultural denial, and returning the dead to families to assist psychological closure.  

This project examines the emergence, social complications and implications of forensic investigations of atrocity. It provides the first global history of the forensic turn in humanitarianism, investigates challenges and innovations in the field by analysing a case in Mexico, and explores the hypothesis that as a result of the forensic turn we can now argue that the dead have human rights. 

Find out more about  Human Rights Human Remains . 

Watch this  LSE Research for the World video  which explores the project in more depth.

The Regulation of Palestinian Everyday Life

This research examined the way Palestinians are influenced and transformed by complex regulatory and normative systems, and the ways in which Palestinians in their everyday life perceive, negotiate, manipulate, adapt and resist such frameworks. The research empirically explores the forms of plural subjectivity which replicate themselves through engagement with different norms, institutions, and actors in a non-sovereign state-like apparatus, within a context of Israeli political and economic domination and the rise of neoliberal modes of governance.

The last two decades have seen the formation of Palestinian state structures and the Palestinian (proto-) citizenry has witnessed a transformation in the modes of everyday life regulation and management. The transition from a situation of direct occupation to 'state building' under indirect occupation subjected Palestinian society to a compounded set of regulatory systems that are transforming and re-defining the meaning of Palestinian lives. The dual authority, under which Palestinians live, the Palestinian Authority and Israel, has generated multiple legal systems (Palestinian and Israeli civil, religious and military legal systems) that manage different but often intersecting aspects of Palestinians' lives.

The focus on everyday life has received relatively little attention in academic literature and presents an original area of investigation that is strengthened by its attention to the multiple regulatory layers – local, regional, international – that impinge upon and shape the lives of Palestinians living under occupation. Most significantly, the ways in which Palestinians from different groups and geographical areas negotiate these multi-layered (often contested, sometimes instrumentally used) technologies of normative governance, remain seriously under-examined and inadequately understood in scholarly literature.

This research seeks to examine the way Palestinians are influenced and transformed by these complex regulatory and normative systems, and the ways in which Palestinians in their everyday life perceive, negotiate, manipulate, adapt and resist such frameworks. The research empirically explores the forms of plural subjectivity which replicate themselves through engagement with different norms, institutions, and actors in a non-sovereign state-like apparatus, within a context of Israeli political and economic domination and the rise of neoliberal modes of governance. 

Human Rights in the Commonwealth of Independent States

For the last two years the situation in regard to respect for human rights in the CIS region has deteriorated dramatically. This shift is, in part, related to and led by a government backlash – with an unprecedented number of new restrictive laws - against mass protests in Russia and a crackdown on the independent media, and on human rights defenders and political opposition in Ukraine. These developments are closely watched and - in many cases – followed by the governments of other CIS countries leading to a number of cases of pressure on and persecution of human rights defenders. This situation affects all independent non-governmental organisations in the region, but particularly those dealing with civil and political rights and especially those that are more active and successful (as they become a bigger irritant for the authorities). The increasing gravity and persistence of the human rights violations are dangerous per se and they also act as a dangerous precedent in the CIS region and in other parts of the world.

For years, human rights defenders in the CIS region – apart from those in the most repressive countries, like Belarus or Uzbekistan – have mostly concentrated their efforts on developing systems of human rights protection for their target groups. Their relationships with their governments were never very close but were, in general, characterised by a sort of cautious neutrality. Most human rights defenders in the region were taken by surprise by recent developments and by the purposeful attack on human rights defenders themselves, and on the way that they operate, and by the unprecedented level of this attack, which has included a number of far-reaching legislative changes.

The new laws (such as the “foreign agents” law adopted in Russia and now discussed in a number of other CIS countries) are not only very restrictive for civil society organisations but also potentially very dangerous to individual human rights defenders. The law on treason may lead to 10 or more years of imprisonment for vaguely described reasons which may include simply sharing information with foreign organizations.

Defending the Defenders

This is a three-year project to support a consortium of Russian non-governmental human rights organisations which enables them to work together in order to assist and protect organisations and activists defending human rights in Russia when they themselves come under threat. 

The present members of the consortium are the Moscow Helsinki Group; the Youth Human Rights Movement; Memorial; the Independent Council of Legal Expertise; the Human Rights Association "Agora"; and the Russian Human Rights Network. 

The project has established a Centre of Emergency Response in order to provide legal and other forms of assistance to organisations and individuals to help them deal with administrative pressure and other forms of intimidation, protect their personal security, and to strengthen the security of their information. The project is also developing a database to provide a reliable basis for advocacy, reporting and campaigning. It helps those human rights defenders who have to go to court. The project also facilitates cooperation with different international human rights mechanisms within the Council of Europe, OSCE and the UN.

CIS Human Rights Network for Conscripts

This is a three-year project to support a consortium of civil society organisations (CSOs) in the CIS to build their capacity to empower conscripts and their families to claim their rights and to enhance the impact of civil society organisations on decision-making processes related to the representation and protection of the human rights of military conscripts. 

The present members of the consortium are Soldiers' Mothers of Armenia; Human Rights Centre of Azerbaijan; Belarus Foundation for Legal Technologies Development; "Promo-LEX" Association of Moldova; Khabarovsk Committee of Soldiers' Mothers; Youth Human Rights Movement; Moscow Helsinki Group; Humanitarian Centre "Compassion"; Young Lawyers Association of Tajikistan, "Amparo"; Ukrainian Centre for Civil Liberties.

The capacity-building programme is aimed at assisting CSOs to cooperate with their own governments and mass-media as well as with international human rights bodies, as well as helping them to organise awareness-raising seminars, roundtable discussions and other advocacy activities with public authorities and other key stakeholders at local and national levels and other key stakeholders. 

Project Team

Professor Margot Light , Programme Director.

Andrey Kuvshinov , Programme Coordinator. Andrey has Masters Degrees in Physics and Social Psychology from Novosibirsk State University, Russia. He was the Chairman of the Siberian Human Rights Network until 2006 when he joined LSE. His interests include human rights, civil society, security, population and development, migration.   

Dmitry Lyulev,  Research Assistant

Selected publications

A report on human rights defenders in Russia in 2011:  Report in Russian

A report on the observance of the right to the freedom of associations in Russia in 2011:  Report in Russian

A report on the observance of the right to the freedom of assembly in Russia in 2011:  Report in Russian

Guidelines on the monitoring of the freedom of peaceful assembly:  Webpage in English  I Webpage in Russian

Legal protection of activists at public events:  Webpage in Russian

Methodology of organising public events

Online guide to freedom of association for government agencies and civil society:  Webpage in English I Webpage in Russian

Annual Report on Human Rights in Russia 2011:  Report in Russian

Annual Report on Human Rights in Russia 2010:  Report in Russian

The book "Alternative call" (on the right to conscientious objection):  Russian

"Black Book" which describes most serious violations of rights of young people in the military:  Russian

Monitoring report on military recruitment for 2011 in Tajikistan:  Russian

Report on Human Rights in Moldova 2009-2010:  Report in English I Report in Russian   

Alternative military service. Standards and approaches to reforms:  Report in Russian

British Social Attitudes

The British public's traditionally strong commitment to civil liberties is believed to be in decline, but until now there has been little rigorous analysis of public opinion. In this project we address that gap by collecting and analysing nationally representative survey data on public attitudes towards national security, human rights and civil liberties. This project was conducted in partnership with the National Centre for Social Research with the support of the New Security Challenges Programme of the Economic and Social Research Council.

We analysed British public attitudes and how they relate to one another (particularly the extent to which it is acceptable to 'trade off' some civil liberties for a perceived counter-terrorism gain). We also identified the political allegiances of those who hold particular views and examined the extent to which attitudes have changed over time. Our key aim was to contribute to the political, public, media and academic debate on civil liberties, human rights and national security, and the interplay between them.

The results of our research were published in 'Civil Liberties and the challenge of terrorism' by Mark Johnson and Conor Gearty in Park A., Curtice, C., Thomson, K., Phillips M., and Johnson, M. (eds) (2007) British Social Attitudes: the 23rd report - Perspectives on a changing society, London: SAGE. ISBN: 9781412934329

Civil Society and National Security

Over a period of two years from 2005 to 2007, we conducted a series of seminars to consider the proper role, if any, of non-governmental personnel in the handling of national security issues within the state. This investigation was made possible with funding from the New Security Challenges Programme of the Economic and Social Research Council.

The objective of the series was to develop a dialogue between government and non-governmental actors on the management of issues related to national security. Our purpose was to facilitate the forging of an approach to the subject which achieves the right balance between officials and others on the one hand, and between principles (relating to security and to democratic and legal accountability for example) on the other. On a strictly non-attributable basis, we brought together senior figures from the government, the judiciary, the bar and the media, as well as academics and campaigners, to discuss the handling of security issues within a state.

The success of the seminar series prompted us to devise a further event devoted to structured thinking and highly-focused discussion on the challenge posed to human rights by terrorism and by counter-terrorism law. Again with support from the ESRC we conducted a full day conference, run on the same non-attributable basis and involving many of the same participants. As with the seminar series our aim was to break through the divides that lie between the various actors engaged in the field of terrorism and human rights thereby fruitfully to address the issues of concern to each in a frank and confidential environment.

In March 2008 the Centre produced a new report: ' Human rights, civil society and the challenge of terrorism ', commenting on the inter-relationship between terrorism law and human rights and reflecting on the seminar series  and conference.

Seminar Reports

- Seminar one: The proper role of the legal profession - Seminar two: The role of the media   - Seminar three: The proper role of the judiciary   - Seminar four: The role of civil society   - Seminar five: The proper role of politicians   - Seminar six: The place of the Human Rights Act

EU policy on human rights, peace and security

The Centre for the Study of Human Rights is a member of the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI). With a grant from European Cooperation in the Field of Scientific and Technical Research AHRI members have undertaken research on EU foreign policy in the areas of human rights, peace and security.

An output of this project is the publication of a multidisciplinary anthology which brings together scholars and practitioners to address the question as to whether, in our globalised world, the protection of economic, social and cultural rights in the South has or should become the duty of actors beyond the state. It explores the role of actors such as transnational business, international financial institutions, supranational organisations and influential states who are involved in or impact on human rights in developing countries. In adopting a 'responsibilities approach', it seeks to clarify the nature, content and scope of their contemporary duties.

Margot E. Salomon, Arne Tostensen and Wouter Vandenhole (eds), Casting the Net Wider: Human Rights, Development and New Duty-Bearers (Intersentia, 2007).

Human Rights Futures Project

The Human Rights Futures Project explored and analysed the future direction of human rights discourse in the UK and elsewhere. The project particularly focused on monitoring and evaluating the impact of the UK's Human Rights Act (HRA) inside and outside the courts to chart the evolving nature of human rights and challenge its characterisation as a technical, legalised discourse, focused solely on the relationship between the individual and the state.

The Project engaged in the political debates on the future of the HRA and proposals for a British Bill of Rights. Human Rights Futures provided academic research and analysis on the background and context to the debate and draws on comparative material to signal the global implications of moving away from international human rights norms to a more national focus. The Project was also involved in analysing political and philosophical debates about the nature of the state and human rights.

Human Rights Act impact on everyday life (briefing), July 2013

Prisoners Voting Rights in the UK (briefing), June 2013

There can be no “forced” law change under the Human Rights Act , Letter to the Daily Mail, 7 May 2013

The government is free to ignore a declaration of incompatibility , Letter to the Daily Telegraph, 7 May 2013

Declarations of Incompatibility under the HRA , April 2013

European Court of Human Rights cases , March 2013

Deportation and the right to respect for private and family life under Article 8 HRA , February 2013

Response to the Commission on a Bill of Rights second consultation , September 2012

Response to the Commission on a Bill of Rights discussion paper 'Do we need a UK Bill of Rights?' , November 2011. Appendix 2:  Proposals for the 'British model' of ECHR incorporation , 1997.

Response to Home Office Consultation on Family Migration , October 2011

The Human Rights Act, European Convention on Human Rights and phone hacking convictions , July 2011

'Human Rights Act Reporting in the Media: corrections and clarifications' . Subsequently published on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee website as written evidence for their Bill of Rights Inquiry, June 2011 

Landmark developments under the Human Rights Act , May 2011

Protection of children's rights under the Human Rights Act , May 2011

Human Rights Act impact outside courts , June 2010

A Bill of Rights that is Human Rights Act plus: What are the minimal indicators? , January 2010

Human Rights Measurement Framework

A partnership project between the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion and the British Institute of Human Rights, and commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in partnership with the Scottish Human Rights Commission.

The Human Rights Measurement Framework (HRMF) was developed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), in partnership with the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC), to monitor human rights in England, Scotland and Wales. The specialist consultation was carried out by an LSE team in partnership with the British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR).

The Human Rights Measurement Framework (on the EHRC website)

Project microsite  (LSE Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion project page)

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Human Rights Project

Examining human rights through teaching, research, and public programs.

  jointly taught by professors Thomas Keenan & Brent Green (contact: clemencyproject@bard.edu ) (Cross-listed with Film and Electronic Arts) State governors (and the President) in the United States possess a strange […]

  jointly taught by professors Thomas Keenan & Brent Green (contact: [email protected]  ) (Cross-listed with Film and Electronic Arts) State governors (and the President) in the United States possess a strange […]

Rahile Dawut, a professor at Xinjiang University in Ürümqi in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a folklorist and ethnographer. She created and directed the University’s Minorities Folklore Research Center […]

Rahile Dawut, a professor at Xinjiang University in Ürümqi in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is a folklorist and ethnographer. She created and directed the University’s Minorities Folklore Research Center […]

Human Rights senior projects going back to 2010 have been archived and are available for viewing in the Bard Digital Commons

Human Rights senior projects going back to 2010 have been archived and are available for viewing in the Bard Digital Commons

The Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism brings a prominent scholar, activist, or artist to Bard College each year, where they spend one semester in residence, teaching in the […]

The Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism brings a prominent scholar, activist, or artist to Bard College each year, where they spend one semester in residence, teaching in the […]

is an auditory platform exploring contemporary topics and issues in human rights, and includes edited talks from the Human Rights Project lectures series, interviews with leading human rights scholars, practitioners, […]

is an auditory platform exploring contemporary topics and issues in human rights, and includes edited talks from the Human Rights Project lectures series, interviews with leading human rights scholars, practitioners, […]

is an exploratory research and action initiative at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Through teaching, public programs, research, and engagement with communities in the region and globally, the Project aims at […]

is an exploratory research and action initiative at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Through teaching, public programs, research, and engagement with communities in the region and globally, the Project aims at […]

is a trans-disciplinary program involving such diverse fields as literature, political studies, history, anthropology, economics, film and media, and art history. It emphasizes integrative historical and conceptual investigations, and offers […]

is a trans-disciplinary program involving such diverse fields as literature, political studies, history, anthropology, economics, film and media, and art history. It emphasizes integrative historical and conceptual investigations, and offers […]

is designed to give students the opportunity to experience first-hand the professional human rights environment, an integral part of human rights education and scholarship. At the moment, our program is […]

is designed to give students the opportunity to experience first-hand the professional human rights environment, an integral part of human rights education and scholarship. At the moment, our program is […]

Upcoming HRP Events

human rights research project

Adania Shibli: With Minimal Force

human rights research project

Sanjay Kak, Archive of Now: Photography in Kashmir 1986-2016

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Fahmidul Haq, The Bollywoodization Effect: The Changing Scenario in South Asian Cinema

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HR 105 Human Rights Advocacy: spotlight on Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut

Human Rights Summer Research Grant

Currently enrolled Duke undergraduate and graduate students are invited to apply for summer research funding from the Duke Human Rights Center@FHI. The goals of the grant are to strengthen global research opportunities for students interested in developing, implementing, and working in human rights. Special consideration is given to students whose research projects contribute to a senior thesis or project, or to students enrolled in the  Human Rights Certificate . Students are encouraged to seek supplementary funding to complete their planned research needs from other Duke sources.

Grants are available for up to $2,000.

Eligibility and criteria.

  • Students from all backgrounds and academic disciplines are encouraged to apply.  Graduating seniors or graduate students in their final year at Duke are not eligible. Students who have previously received this grant are also ineligible.
  • Students must be directed by a member of the Duke University faculty and conducted over a period no less than 2 weeks during the summer. Students are expected to be in frequent contact with their advisors and the DHRC@FHI throughout the duration of the project.
  • Projects involving interactions with human subjects online will need approval from the Duke Institutional Review Board.  Read more here .

The deadline for 2024 applications is March 29, 2024. Please complete the form here to submit an application.

Questions? Contact Corin Zaragoza at [email protected]

2023 Undergraduate Student Awardees

Taylor Glatt: Barriers to Healthcare for Refugees from a Provider Prospective in Durham, NC

This research project will analyze providers’ perspectives on what they view as barriers to accessing healthcare for the Durham refugee population. The project will survey a variety of individuals involved in the healthcare delivery process such as physicians, nurses, financial counselors, respiratory therapists, receptionists or intake employees and compare to existing literature on barriers that refugees experience in order to assess the gaps or overlaps of barriers to healthcare from the perspective of healthcare professionals and refugees in order to find ways to reduce these barriers and highlight the variance between these two perspectives.

Andrew McCallum: Museums, Memory, and Migration in Paraguay

Through a summer-long internship with the Hrisuk collection in Encarnacion, Paraguay, I hope to examine the role of the museum in memory formation for the region. The Hrisuk collection has extensive documentation recording the dynamic history of Paraguay’s Itapúa department. Itapua, the former site of the numerous Jesuit missions, has received a substantial flow of immigrants since the beginning of the colonial period. The collection will reflect this broad trend – a complicated record of the various groups who looked to make their living in the relative isolation of Paraguay. I will conduct my research through a direct study of the museum’s exhibits, working to catalogue and display the content to the public. I also aim to interview various people with experiences adjacent to the museum and its material. I want to understand what role the collection occupies in the mind of the surrounding community. To what extent are the narratives presented by the museum upheld and disputed by their audience? How can a topic as multilayered as immigration be properly represented? The precise lens of the Hrisuk collection will aid me in thinking through these questions.

Alex Penne: Effects of U.S. Drone Technology in Singapore

I have a lot of interest in the intersection of technology, law, and ethics, and I am currently working with the Bridgeman Lab to develop control systems for UAV and drone technology. Drone technology has recently been implemented by governments to enforce the law, such as China’s use of UAVs to detect violations of COVID-19 isolation protocols or Iran’s use of drones to prosecute women not following hijab rules. Typically engineering feats are criticized ethically after they have already been implemented. My goal with the Human Rights Grant is to criticize my own research before I complete it to mitigate possible harmful implementations. In August, I will be investigating the implications of drone technology and other smart-city design choices in Singapore and using them to drive how I conduct my own research. I hope that my research will inspire other scientists to evaluate their own research in the context of human rights before they publish.

2023 Graduate Student Awardees

John Sabogal Venegas: Indigenous, Rural Communities in Colombia After Civil War

My dissertation project focuses on how rural communities, and particularly indigenous peoples, in Colombia navigate the challenges of autonomy and territorial sovereignty in a changing context of war and its aftermath. Through an ethnographic approach to indigenous struggles in the department of Cauca (Colombia), I will examine how communities and local authorities construct their everyday experiences and social commitments in the years following the 2016 peace agreements between the state and the FARC guerrilla. In particular, this project asks what these changes mean for indigenous visions of autonomy, which have gained strength in the context of increased indigenous activism in Latin America in recent decades. I expect my research to shed new light on the problem of violence and indigenous struggle in Colombia, as well as in similar contexts in Latin America. It will also, more broadly, challenge conventional assumptions about transitional justice, truth, memory and reconciliation in the aftermath and transformation of civil war. Finally, the contribution of ethnographic fieldwork is to highlight the micro-political dynamics of reconciliation and emerging social relations, particularly in the context of indigenous social movements.

Hareth Yousef: illegal settlements and land confiscation and their impact on Palestinian farming communities

As part of my thesis project, I've been working on a documentary that focuses on the changes in the landscape of villages around Ramallah, including my village, and the transformation of the villages' economy from farming to other sectors. The documentary consists of three parts, the first of which explores the nostalgia for lost lands and traditions. In the second part, I aim to document why the landscape has changed so drastically, including the introduction of certain animals by illegal settlers, which have become destruction machines to the land, and other economic and social factors. Finally, the third part of the documentary is about the remaining farmers still holding onto the tradition of farming in a land that is in danger of confiscating by illegal Israeli settlers.

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  • v.20(1); Spring 2020

Why Human Subjects Research Protection Is Important

Background: Institutional review boards (IRBs), duly constituted under the Office of Human Research Protection, have the federally mandated responsibility of reviewing research involving human subjects to ensure that a proposed protocol meets the appropriate ethical guidelines before subjects may be enrolled in any study. The road leading to the current regulations and ethical considerations has been long and checkered.

Methods: This paper reviews the history of human subjects participating in research, including examples of egregious events, and the ethical analyses that precipitated the evolution of the mandated protections afforded participants in research under current federal regulations.

Results: Key documents—from the Nuremberg Code in 1947 to the Belmont Report in 1978 to Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research in 2011—that have informed the ethics debate regarding human subjects protection in research activities are presented in light of their historic significance, highlighting the complexity of the issues surrounding protection of human subjects in research.

Conclusion: The examples from history and the scarcity of contemporary examples demonstrate that the regulations for the protection of humans participating in research have evolved in a way that minimizes the probability that subjects will be harmed when they choose to participate in research. The examples also reinforce the importance of individual responsibility. Failure of IRBs to provide appropriate review and oversight can lead to severe consequences, as can abrogation by the investigator to place the well-being of the subjects as the primary responsibility in any research protocol. Understanding how we arrived at the current approach and some of the failures that directed this course can support efforts to continually reevaluate and improve the safety of subjects who are willing to participate in research activities.

INTRODUCTION

Participation of human subjects in research presents a challenging ethical dilemma. A research subject may be asked to participate in a study of no benefit and no substantial risk or in a study with the potential for significant benefit but also significant risk. In placebo-controlled studies, subjects may be exposed to significant risk for no benefit to the individual. These variants are confounded by treatment protocols—most commonly encountered in oncology trials—that compare the effect of an investigational arm to the standard of care, further blurring the distinction between research and medical treatment.

Institutional review boards (IRBs) have the federally mandated responsibility to review research involving human subjects to ensure that a proposed protocol meets the appropriate ethical guidelines before subjects may be enrolled in the study. The road leading to the current regulations and ethical considerations has been long and checkered. The system that has evolved minimizes the risks for unethical behavior and serious adverse events but is not infallible. Understanding how we have arrived at the current approach and analyzing some of the ethical lapses that directed this course support efforts to continually reevaluate the regulations in order to improve the safety of subjects who are willing to participate in research activities.

EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS PROTECTION

Our current approach to human subjects protection has evolved with efforts to understand questionable ethical behavior in research over the course of several hundred years. One might suggest that the jester conscripted to sample the king's food to ensure that it was safe to eat presaged the use of vulnerable populations as subjects for research, but the evolution of the management of smallpox is perhaps a more applicable early perspective on research in humans. Three centuries ago, reports of good outcomes following variolation—inhalation of the scabs from persons infected with smallpox—were circulating in Asia. In 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British ambassador to Turkey, became an advocate of variolation after learning about it in Constantinople. In 1721, after she returned to England, Lady Montagu and the Princess of Wales urged variolation of “several prisoners and abandoned children” by having smallpox scabs inserted under their skin. Several months later, the children and prisoners were deliberately exposed to smallpox. When none contracted the disease, the procedure was deemed safe, and members of the royal family were treated according to this new protocol. 1

Later that same century, Edward Jenner developed inoculation with a vaccine. Many of his contemporaries had noted that milkmaids who had contracted cowpox seemed immune to the much more lethal smallpox. In May 1796, Jenner isolated material from the cowpox lesions on the milkmaid Sarah Nelms and inoculated 8-year-old James Phipps who developed fever and malaise about 9 days after the inoculation. Some accounts report that Phipps was the son of Jenner's gardener. A few months later, Jenner deliberately inoculated Phipps with material from fresh smallpox lesions, and the child remained healthy. The adoption of this process was not immediate but slowly spread and is widely cited as the first scientific approach proving vaccination. 2

This early use of children and prisoners portends a long history of selecting what are now considered vulnerable populations to be the subjects of research. Participation was commonly without consent, with no knowledge of their participation, and with no explanation of the research. Information was withheld from those selected to participate in research activities perceived as dangerous to more acceptable members of society, and the therapies developed were generalized only if they were proven relatively safe and effective in what are now recognized as vulnerable populations.

Numerous instances of research experiments in subsequent years exposed vulnerable subjects to risk, including a pivotal research disaster in Germany just before World War II that led to regulations for human subjects participation in research projects.

The Reich Circular of 1931

As reported by Sir Graham Wilson in the book The Hazards of Immunization , “Between 10 December 1929 and 30 April 1930, 251 of 412 infants born in the old Hanseatic town of Lubeck received three doses of BCG [bacillus Calmette-Guerin] vaccine by the mouth during the first ten days of life. Of these 251, 72 died of tuberculosis, most of them in two to five months and all but one before the end of the first year. In addition, 135 suffered from clinical tuberculosis but eventually recovered; and 44 became tuberculin-positive but remained well.” 3

Bonah and Menut describe how Albert Calmette was able to establish the BCG vaccine as a nonexperimental “prophylactic treatment” against tuberculosis. 4 By definition, a medical experiment, as opposed to any other medical action, has definite ethical implications and consequences. Even though the BCG vaccine was in experimental stages, Calmette convinced a court that the vaccine was a “post-experimental, routine medical treatment.” By avoiding the definition of an experiment, Calmette did not have to inform the children's parents about the risks of the vaccine. As a result of this tragedy, Dr Julius Moses, a critic of unethical human experimentation who referred to “experimental mania,” drafted guidelines for human experimentation. After debate in parliament and the press, the guidelines were published and became official in 1931. The guidelines applied to everyone in Germany. 5 , 6

These rules for research in human subjects were issued as the Reich Circular of 1931 ( Figure 1 ). The document is quite informative for its contrast with later events in Germany and worth reviewing for correlation with ethical concepts now well accepted in ethical thinking. It is worth noting that these guidelines emphasize special responsibilities for utilization of “innovative therapy,” suggesting a similar level of responsibility for these procedures as for research.

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The Reich Circular, 1931 6

World War II and the Nuremberg Code

Despite the ethical ideals espoused in the Reich Circular, the travesty of the Holocaust followed shortly afterward, leading to war criminal trials after the surrender of Germany ended World War II in Europe.

The Nuremberg trials that began in 1945 and concluded in 1947 were held in response to the atrocities Germany committed during the war. The so-called Doctors’ Trial represents a major turning point in human research protection. Twenty-three physicians were indicted, accused of crimes against humanity by conducting criminal scientific and medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Sixteen defendants were found guilty. 7

Several German doctors had argued that no international law or informal statement differentiated between legal and illegal human experimentation, despite the aforementioned Reich Circular. Two US doctors who worked with the prosecution during the trial, Andrew Ivy and Leo Alexander, objected to this argument. On April 17, 1947, Dr Alexander submitted a memorandum to the United States Counsel for War Crimes outlining 6 points defining legitimate medical research. The trial verdict reiterated almost all of these points in a section entitled Permissible Medical Experiments and expanded the original 6 points into 10. These 10 points became known as the Nuremberg Code ( Figure 2 ). 8

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The Nuremberg Code, 1947 10

Similar atrocities were carried out on Chinese citizens in Japanese camps; of particular note are the biological warfare experiments at Unit 731 in the Pacific theater that were obscured by agreements made during the surrender of Japan and with the complicity of the United States. 9 The details of these atrocities remained classified until they were acknowledged by Congress in the Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act of 2000 (Pub L No. 106-567, Title VIII of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2000) that called for declassification and release of records related to Japanese war crimes during World War II. 10

Declaration of Helsinki

The tenets of the Nuremberg Code, while guiding the future for human research protection, represent a military code of conduct with no standing in civil international or US law. By absolutely requiring the voluntary consent of the individual, the Nuremberg Code notably does not address the needs of children or other special populations unable to provide consent. The Nuremberg Code inspired the World Medical Association (WMA)—an international association currently comprised of 114 national medical associations, including the American Medical Association—to propose a similar code of conduct for participating members by publishing the Declaration of Helsinki in 1964. This document reiterates the provisions of the Nuremberg Code and expands the provisions to allow for the participation of children and other potentially compromised subjects in research. The Declaration of Helsinki serves as a guideline for ethical research and has been amended 7 times, most recently at the WMA General Assembly in October 2013, to reflect contemporary ethical issues as they have evolved since the initial statement in 1964. 11

Ethics Violations in the United States

Meanwhile, research continued in the United States with particular concerns attached to research involving vulnerable populations, exemplified by numerous studies involving institutionalized children and studies that breached ethically sound research practices. Henry Beecher, a well-recognized physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, surveyed the contemporary literature to identify ethical concerns and organized lectures around his observations. These lectures eventually culminated in a special article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1966. 12

In “Ethics and Clinical Research,” Beecher reported that he had reviewed 100 consecutive articles published in 1964 “in an excellent journal,” and after culling his list to address the editor's request, selected 12 articles that demonstrated serious ethical concerns. The purpose of Beecher's article was to demonstrate the widespread lapse in ethical issues in medical research and to encourage reform in the ethical approach to human subjects research that inspired Congress to reconsider legislative reforms for human subjects protection.

An article by Jean Heller that appeared in the Washington Star on July 25, 1972 placed an exclamation point in the history of human research ethics. 13 Heller reported on a long-term study sponsored by the US Public Health Service on the effect of syphilis if left untreated in poor rural African American subjects. Officially known as the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,” the study enrolled 399 subjects with syphilis and 201 uninfected controls from the African American community surrounding Tuskegee, AL for “treatment of bad blood.” In exchange for taking part in the study, the men received free medical examinations, free meals, and burial insurance but were not given the benefit of providing informed consent. No treatment was provided; the research plan was to follow the subjects to establish a natural history for the disease if left untreated. Although originally projected to last 6 months, the study continued for 40 years. 14

Treatments available at the onset of the trial in 1932, even if provided, were not very effective and would have been heavy metals, involving at least 30 months of treatment, a 30% cure rate, and significant toxicity. By 1945, penicillin had been proven to be an effective therapy for syphilis with few side effects. Once penicillin was established as effective, the US Public Health Service set up centers for treatment but determined that the data from the Tuskegee experiments were too important to abandon and decided that the study should be continued with no treatment provided to the participants. Similar determinations were made in subsequent years, with the last review occurring as recently as 1969. 14

While medical research such as the Tuskegee study garnered most of the attention for ethical lapses, other areas of research involving human subjects also raised concerns. The Milgram experiments carried out in the early 1960s at Yale University are a lightning rod for discussion of ethical issues in human subjects research in social sciences. 15 Intrigued by the Nuremberg trials defendants’ argument that they were simply following orders, Stanley Milgram set out to determine if the German defendants were particularly obedient to authority figures compared to other members of society. Milgram recruited subjects for an experiment in learning via newspaper ads. The male research subjects were assigned to act as a teacher asking questions of a learner (a confederate of Milgram) who was attached to electrodes. The teachers were instructed to increase the severity of electrical shocks if the learner answered the questions incorrectly. Shocks were labeled from 15v to 450v, with 15v indicated as mild, 300v as severe, and 450v as XXX. Many of the teacher subjects eventually shocked the learner at 450v and exhibited increasing signs of distress as the shocks they delivered increased in perceived severity. 15 These experiments evoked significant concern among those in social sciences in regard to the questionable ethics of the deception used, as well as the potential for long-term psychological harm that might be incurred by unwitting participants.

Federal Policy for Protection of Human Subjects and the National Research Act

The public outcry over the Tuskegee study, other reports of ethical lapses in both medical and social research, and the alarm in the medical community raised by Dr Beecher's article in the New England Journal of Medicine led Congress to action. On May 30, 1974, the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (DHEW), responsible for oversight of the National Institutes of Health, replaced previous policies with comprehensive regulations governing the protection of human subjects (45 CFR §46). 16 One month later in July 1974, Congress passed the National Research Service Award Act of 1974 (Pub L No. 93-348). 17 Title II of the act, Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, created the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Along with being assigned several other tasks, the National Commission was directed to make recommendations to the DHEW secretary about the ethical principles that should underlie human subjects research. 18

The Belmont Report

The National Commission issued several reports in response to the directives. The most notable among a collection of important documents is the Belmont Report, named after the Smithsonian conference center where the group convened, that was issued in 1978. 19 This document, widely regarded as the landmark analysis of ethics in human subjects research, serves as the foundation for discussion of ethical concerns in research ethics involving human subjects, as well as the source of federal regulations for research established by the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP).

The Belmont Report is divided into three sections. The first section briefly states the National Commission's recognition that even as the report was being written, the distinction between medical practice and research was blurred. The report defines medical practice as “interventions that are designed solely to enhance the well-being of an individual patient or client and that have a reasonable expectation for success. Research, on the other hand, is defined as “an activity designed to test an hypothesis, permit conclusions to be drawn, and thereby to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge (expressed, for example, in theories, principles, and statements of relationships).” This section further expounds on the conflation between the use of the terms experimental and research. When used in reference to a procedure or treatment that significantly deviates from typical (ie, a treatment that is “new, different or untested”), the report notes that an “experimental” treatment is not necessarily research. Although they excluded “experimental” treatment from research and the applicable anticipated regulations, the National Commission strongly recommended that such treatments should eventually be incorporated into formal research protocols “to determine if they are safe and effective.” The first section of the Belmont Report concludes with the recognition that practice and research may go hand in hand: “the general rule is that if there is any element of research in an activity, that activity should undergo review for the protection of human subjects.” 19 This language is reminiscent of the Reich Circular recommendation regarding “innovative therapy.”

The second section is the heart of the report and defines three principles that should guide the discourse surrounding any ethical concerns related to research in human subjects: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. The principle of nonmaleficence, now commonly accepted as one of the four principles of biomedical ethics, was notably absent.

  • Respect for persons : The principle of respect for persons requires that “individuals should be treated as autonomous agents,” and those with “diminished autonomy are entitled to protection.” These concepts inform “two separate moral requirements: the requirement to acknowledge autonomy and the requirement to protect those with diminished autonomy.” The National Commission defines the elements that would be necessary to qualify as an autonomous individual and explores circumstances that would define those who should be considered to be of diminished autonomy and thus deserving of protection.
  • Beneficence : The principle of beneficence as defined by the National Commission encompasses the concept of do no harm included in the Hippocratic Oath and notes that the term is commonly thought “to cover acts of kindness or charity that go beyond strict obligation.” The National Commission proposes two general rules that inform beneficence as an obligation: “(1) do not harm and (2) maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.” The implications of these duties within the context of both individual investigators and society at large are examined.
  • Justice : The principle of justice is posed as the following question: “Who ought to receive the benefits of research and bear its burdens?” This principle is broad in potential implications and can be summarized as evaluating the appropriate distribution of the risks and burdens of research among individuals, groups, or even situations in which inherent inequalities may need to be considered to reach an ethically informed decision. The National Commission proposes the following framework for beginning these discussions: “(1) to each person an equal share, (2) to each person according to individual need, (3) to each person according to individual effort, (4) to each person according to societal contribution, and (5) to each person according to merit.” The discussion of justice continues with the historic context for including the principle of justice and how lapses in justice (ie, the Tuskegee study) were the primary impetus for the formation of the National Commission.

The final section of the Belmont Report addresses the application of these principles and the implications of their requirements when considering three important elements of research involving human subjects: informed consent, assessment of risks and benefits, and selection of subjects for research.

Informed consent. The consent process has three components: information, comprehension, and voluntariness. Reaching agreement on an appropriate standard for evaluating the quality of information that should be provided to potential participants about a proposed research project is difficult and eventually ends with the suggestion that the standard of “the reasonable volunteer” might best fulfill the requirements of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. A caveat is provided, citing the problem posed by research where “informing subjects of some pertinent aspect of the research is likely to impair the validity of the research,” a key area of ethical concern (lack of disclosure) raised by the Milgram study discussed previously. The National Commission proposes that such studies may only be appropriate if “(1) incomplete disclosure is truly necessary to accomplish the goals of the research, (2) there are no undisclosed risks to subjects that are more than minimal, and (3) there is an adequate plan for debriefing subjects, when appropriate, and for dissemination of research results to them,” further noting that “Care should be taken to distinguish cases in which disclosure would destroy or invalidate the research from cases in which disclosure would simply inconvenience the investigator.” 19

Regarding the component of comprehension, the Belmont Report states, “The manner and context in which information is conveyed is as important as the information itself.” The level of comprehension is also important within the context of the individual's ability to understand the information, with emphasis that the obligation for ensuring subject understanding increases in importance relative to the level of risk posed by participation in the study. The National Commission suggests that some level of questioning the subject to ensure comprehension is appropriate and even suggests that written responses to questions may be appropriate if risks are exceptionally high. 19 If participation of subjects with compromised abilities is anticipated, researchers must be particularly diligent in evaluating the level of comprehension by the subject's proxy and ensure that the proxy is indeed capable of representing the best interests of the subject. The report even suggests that the proxy might need to be present or available during the research interventions to withdraw the subject from the study if the proxy perceives that withdrawal may be in the subject's best interest.

Voluntariness is a concept consistently emphasized in the Reich Circular, the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, and the Belmont Report. Although voluntariness may appear to be self-evident, it may be the most difficult concept to address. The Belmont Report emphasizes that the subject must be “free of coercion and undue influence.” Coercion is specifically defined as “an overt threat of harm” and in most circumstances is relatively easy to evaluate. However, arguments can be made about what defines “undue influence.” Discussions about appropriate levels of compensation for participation are common, particularly when studies involve financial or other considerations made to possibly financially compromised subjects. The Belmont Report specifically notes, “inducements that would ordinarily be acceptable may become undue influences if the subject is especially vulnerable.” Other concerns related to undue influence involve social standing, employment, or other circumstances that may be difficult to assess but are worthy of consideration for individual subjects.

Assessment of risks and benefits. The National Commission notes that a favorable risk/benefit assessment is associated with the principle of beneficence. This definition is particularly appropriate in that the National Commission's interpretation of beneficence includes the duty of nonmaleficence. The Belmont Report examines the meaning of risk and benefit in the setting of potential types of harm that may be experienced by individual subjects, the families of the individual subjects, society at large, or special groups of subjects in society. Benefits are also discussed in relation to the individual and society at large. In summarizing the risks and benefits of research, the Belmont Report states

…assessment of the justifiability of research should reflect at least the following considerations:
Brutal or inhumane treatment of human subjects is never morally justified.
Risks should be reduced to those necessary to achieve the research objective. It should be determined whether it is in fact necessary to use human subjects at all. Risk can perhaps never be entirely eliminated, but it can often be reduced by careful attention to alternative procedures.
When research involves significant risk of serious impairment, review committees should be extraordinarily insistent on the justification of the risk (looking usually to the likelihood of benefit to the subject—or, in some rare cases, to the manifest voluntariness of the participation).
When vulnerable populations are involved in research, the appropriateness of involving them should itself be demonstrated. A number of variables go into such judgments, including the nature and degree of risk, the condition of the particular population involved, and the nature and level of the anticipated benefits.
Relevant risks and benefits must be thoroughly arrayed in documents and procedures used in the informed consent process. 19

Selection of subjects for research. The third element, selection of subjects for research, finds its primary guidance in the principle of justice where the moral requirements demand that the procedures and outcomes for the selection of subjects are fair to the individual and within the social context. Participation in potentially beneficial research should be fairly distributed to all who wish to participate, and risky research should not be offered only to less desirable subjects. In the context of society, risks should be distributed after careful consideration of the burdens and the ability of individuals in identifiable groups to bear those burdens. As a generalization, adults should be considered before children, and participation by institutionalized individuals should invoke very careful consideration. Even with these safeguards, the National Commission believed that the selection of subjects may continue to reflect injustice arising from social, racial, sexual, and cultural biases institutionalized in society. Harking back to the ethical concerns that prompted the National Commission, the Belmont Report concludes with the following: “One special instance of injustice results from the involvement of vulnerable subjects. Certain groups, such as racial minorities, the economically disadvantaged, the very sick, and the institutionalized may continually be sought as research subjects, owing to their ready availability in settings where research is conducted. Given their dependent status and their frequently compromised capacity for free consent, they should be protected against the danger of being involved in research solely for administrative convenience, or because they are easy to manipulate as a result of their illness or socioeconomic condition.” 19

Although not included in the body of the report, a footnote specifically addresses the difficulty in extrapolating these tenets to human subjects research in the social sciences: “Because the problems related to social experimentation may differ substantially from those of biomedical and behavioral research, the Commission specifically declines to make any policy determination regarding such research at this time. Rather, the Commission believes that the problem ought to be addressed by one of its successor bodies.” 19 An appropriate ethical approach for some areas of social and psychological studies remains elusive. Matthew Salganik, professor of sociology at Princeton University, discusses the issues surrounding the difficulty in applying the Belmont Report recommendations at his blog. 20

The Belmont Report was submitted to Congress on April 18, 1979.

Other Reports by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research

Although the Belmont Report is the centerpiece for the analysis of research in human subjects, the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research provided significant additional guidance for Congress to consider as the legislators moved forward to formulate regulations for the governance of human subjects in research. During the 4 years of the National Commission's appointment, other publications provided analysis of concerns related to specific questions (Table), and many of the recommendations were incorporated into the subsequent regulations for human subjects protection. 21

Table .

Human Subjects Protection in Research Reports From the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1974-1978 21

FOIA, Freedom of Information Act.

Principles of Biomedical Ethics

Another landmark publication from 1979 deserves attention for its sustained influence on the field of biomedical ethics and its deviation from the three ethical principles put forth by the Belmont Report. In Principles of Biomedical Ethics , Tom Beauchamp and James Childress argue for inclusion of nonmaleficence as an independent principle to formulate the now-familiar four principles that inform contemporary bioethical discourse. 22 As previously noted, nonmaleficence is considered a duty under the umbrella of the principle of beneficence in the Belmont Report. Beauchamp and Childress maintained that the tradition to do no harm central to the tenets of the Hippocratic Oath incorporates the concept of nonmaleficence at its core and is essential to any discussion of the ethics of medical practice. As such, they argued, this concept should be considered as separate from and not subsidiary to beneficence: “First, to confuse them is to obscure distinctions that we make in ordinary moral discourse. Second, ordinary moral discourse expresses the defensible conviction that we have certain duties not to injure others that are not only distinct from but also more stringent than our duties to benefit others.” 22 The authors make the distinction that the negative duty to cause no harm should be encompassed by nonmaleficence, and the positive but not so strongly established moral duty to benefit others should constitute the core of beneficence. The authors acknowledged that other eminent scholars disagreed with the separation of nonmaleficence and beneficence, but they constructed an argument that has been upheld by the historic inclusion of nonmaleficence in most bioethics discussions following their book's original publication (the book is now its seventh edition). The book has had a significant influence on the still-evolving field of bioethics contemporary to its publication and the Belmont Report. Both authors regularly served as staff members for the Kennedy Institute Intensive Bioethics Course, and Beauchamp served as staff philosopher for the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research that produced the Belmont Report. The authors acknowledged the influence of several other members of the commission and other colleagues who contributed significantly to their deliberations as their work progressed.

US Legislative Updates, 1981

DHEW officially became the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 1980, and in response to the Belmont Report, the HHS and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) significantly revised their protection of human subjects regulations in 1981 (45 CFR §46 and 21 CFR §50). 16 , 18 , 23

These regulations specifically address concerns related to vulnerable populations in Subparts B, C, and D, incorporating the recommendations from the National Commission. The Research on the Fetus report 24 informed Subpart B (additional protections for pregnant women, human fetuses, and neonates), Subpart C (additional protections for prisoners) reflected the recommendations in Research Involving Prisoners , 25 and Subpart D (additional protections for children) was informed by the Research Involving Children report. 26

HUMAN SUBJECTS PROTECTION OVERSIGHT

Oversight in the united states.

To this point, this review has focused on some of the historic events and documents precipitating evaluation of the ethical requirements for human subjects research in the United States and a review of the regulations that evolved from that history. The question not yet addressed is how these regulations should be enforced. As with the discussion of research ethics, the approach to enforcement of regulations also lies within the National Research Service Award Act of 1974 (Pub L No. 93-348). 17 In addition to establishing the National Commission responsible for the Belmont Report, the National Research Act elected to perpetuate the regulatory mechanism for research extant within many departments of DHEW that evolved from the US Public Health Service requirements initiated by the Surgeon General in 1966. The background of this development is described in William Curran's article, “Government Regulation of the Use of Human Subjects in Medical Research: The Approach of Two Federal Agencies.” 27

This system for review of human subjects research within DHEW as described in The Institutional Guide to DHEW Policy on Protection of Human Subjects 28 became the model for institutional review boards (IRBs) that the National Research Act would require of grantees and contractees for review of research involving human subjects. The National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research was specifically charged with reviewing the function of IRBs and making recommendations for integrating the role of the IRB into the regulatory process to provide oversight of the application of ethical principles and of the regulations. 18

On September 1, 1978, the National Commission completed the less spectacular but equally important report, Institutional Review Boards , 29 before submitting the Belmont Report on September 30 that same year. Institutional Review Boards outlines the National Commission's concept of the ideal environment for the application of the federal regulations.

In the introduction to the report, the National Commission provides this understated assessment of the role of the IRB: “This review of proposed research by IRBs is the primary mechanism for assuring that the rights of human subjects are protected.” 29 The document outlines the ideal responsibilities of the IRB in the oversight of research to ensure that human subjects receive appropriate protections and ethical treatment for their willingness to participate in research, sometimes at no benefit to themselves. The National Commission summarized their objective as follows:

In the recommendations that follow, the Commission expresses its judgment about the ways in which those elements [that must be considered in balancing society's interests in protecting the rights of the subjects and in developing knowledge that can benefit the subjects or society as a whole] ought to be brought to bear on research practices, so that a reasonable and ethical balance of society's interests may be attained.
The Commission's deliberations begin with the premise that investigators should not have sole responsibility for determining whether research involving human subjects fulfills ethical standards. Others, who are independent of the research, must share this responsibility, because investigators are always in positions of potential conflict by virtue of their concern with the pursuit of knowledge as well as the welfare of the human subjects of their research.
The Commission believes that the rights of subjects should be protected by local review committees operating pursuant to federal regulations and located in institutions where research involving human subjects is conducted. 29

The document continues this proposal and is seemingly all-inclusive in its conception of the IRB. Highlights include a list of the requirements that must be met to approve research and details for reviewing and approving the consent process, including the essential elements to be included and the safeguards that should be in place to ensure that the process is respected. Specific recommendations also address the constitution of the IRB; how it should be funded; and legal protections for the board, the process, and its members.

Most of the recommendations from the Institutional Review Boards report were incorporated into the HHS regulations—HHS being the responsible federal agency—as part of the rules revision in 1981 in response to the Belmont Report and several other publications of the National Commission. Acting independently from HHS, the FDA also adopted IRBs as a regulatory mechanism, with regulations first issued in 1981 as part of the agency's response to provisions of the National Research Act. 18 , 30

One particularly relevant recommendation of the National Commission from Institutional Review Boards remained outstanding after the changes in 1981: “Recommendation (1) (A) Federal law should be enacted or amended to authorize the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to promulgate regulations governing ethical review of all research involving human subjects that is subject to federal regulation.” 29

The report notes significant “variations arising out of differences in wording, imposition of additional requirements, introduction of minor changes, etc.” among the different agencies apart from DHEW involved in research involving human subjects and expresses concern that this variability places an unnecessary burden on the individual IRBs for interpreting and properly enforcing the regulations. The National Commission's recommendation was to establish “DHEW as the sole authority” for regulations, expressing the belief that such a rule “would reduce the burden on IRBs to interpret and apply the regulations to which they are subject. Moreover, uniformity would assure a minimum level of protection to human subjects of research, no matter which federal agency is supporting the research or which entity is conducting it.” 29 Having inherited the mantle of responsibility from the now-extinct DHEW and recognizing the reality of this assessment, the newly designated HHS explored implementation of this recommendation, particularly as it related to the function of IRBs. As with most changes affecting multiple branches of government, the process became complex. In December 1981, the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and in Biomedical and Behavioral Research, a new commission appointed by Congress in 1978, entered the fray and recommended that all federal departments and agencies adopt the HHS regulations (45 CFR §46). In addition, an ad hoc Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects—composed of representatives and ex officio members from departments and agencies that conducted, supported, or regulated research involving human subjects—was appointed in May 1982 by the president's science advisor to respond to the recommendations of this new commission. After much consideration and negotiation, these efforts were finally addressed by adoption of the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects, known as the Common Rule, in 1991 and codified in the individual regulations by 15 federal departments and agencies. Each of these agencies includes in its chapter of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) section numbers and language that are identical to those of the HHS codification at 45 CFR §46, Subpart A for the regulation of human subjects participation in research. The HHS regulations also include Subparts B, C, and D as additional regulations pertaining to vulnerable subjects. 16 , 31

In addition to harmonizing the regulations across agencies of the federal government, the Common Rule requires institutions that receive funds for research involving human subjects from federal agencies that are signatories to the Common Rule to certify that the research has been reviewed and approved by an IRB that meets the specific requirements for composition, for functioning, and for the criteria followed to approve research. By mandate of the Common Rule, IRBs are empowered to approve, require modifications of, or disapprove research activities and are required to conduct continuing review of ongoing research at least annually.

The FDA concurs with the Common Rule but claims special privilege in not signing on to it. In the Federal Register of November 10, 1988 (53 FR 45678), the agency proposed to amend its regulations in 21 CFR §50 and §56 so that they conformed to the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects to the extent permitted but noted that the FDA is a regulatory agency that rarely supports or conducts research under its regulations. 32

International Oversight

With the adoption of the Common Rule, regulations for human subjects research conducted within the United States became well established, but research has never been confined by the borders of the United States. Even though a project funded by federal monetary support may have some leverage to require adherence to US regulations, significant numbers of human research subjects participate in studies well beyond the influence of the US regulations. The international norms for participation of human subjects in research evolved along a course that frequently cross-pollinated with the concepts culminating in the Common Rule. The Declaration of Helsinki was an early statement of basic tenets that should apply to all research involving human subjects, and it has continued to evolve, with updates reflecting new issues as they become relevant. While addressing the ethical concepts, the Declaration of Helsinki does not provide an organizational or regulatory framework for human subjects protection. Providing this framework on an international basis presented a challenge well beyond the challenge of harmonizing regulations across different federal agencies as was accomplished by the Common Rule. The difficulties encountered in implementing the Common Rule represent only a microcosm of the enormous task of harmonizing regulatory and organizational concepts across the borders of different cultures and political systems. However, this task was particularly relevant because of the evolution of research into an international enterprise with multicenter drug trials and the expansion of vaccine trials in children. Many of these studies are conducted by multinational contract research organizations that have access to populations of subjects with exposure to diseases that may not be widely encountered in the United States.

An argument can be made that the process for oversight of human subjects in research at the international level started in 1948 before the Declaration of Helsinki when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) joined with the World Health Organization (WHO) to establish a permanent Council for Coordination of International Medical Congresses, formally constituted in Brussels in 1949 as a nongovernmental organization with the purpose of facilitating “the exchange of views and scientific information in the medical sciences by securing continuity and coordination between international organizations of medical sciences, by making their work known, and by providing them with material aid where necessary.” 33 The scope of activities gradually expanded to include collaborative efforts among international medical activities in addition to the coordination of participating congresses. In 1992, the name of the council was changed to the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), and its statutes were revised to reflect the expanded role. 33

The original council ventured into medical research by organizing a 1959 meeting in Vienna under the auspices of UNESCO and the WHO “to discuss the principles, organization and scope of ‘controlled clinical trials,’ which must be carried out if new methods or preparations used for the treatment of disease are to be accurately assessed clinically.” The executive secretary summarized the meeting: “The conference was in itself an experiment.” 34

Following this meeting, the council became much more involved in considerations regarding research and particularly the participation of human subjects in research trials, eventually publishing Proposed International Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects in 1982. The purpose of the guidelines was “to indicate how the ethical principles that should guide the conduct of biomedical research involving human subjects, as set forth in the Declaration of Helsinki, could be applied, particularly in developing countries, given their socioeconomic circumstances, laws and regulations, and executive and administrative arrangements.” 35 This quote is from the background notes for International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects published in 1993 after discussion and reconsideration of the comments received in response to the proposed guidelines. 35

The publication of the guidelines in 1993, soon after the name change to CIOMS, represented a landmark for international research ethics. The steering committee included an international staff of 24 members and an even larger list of advisors and consultants. The committee was co-chaired by Robert Levine from Yale University, who was listed as a “Special Consultant” on the Belmont Report and authored the first four articles for discussion in the appendix to the Belmont Report, and John H. Bryant, an American physician with a distinguished career in international medical practice. In addition to the Declaration of Helsinki, the International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects was strongly influenced by the Belmont Report as demonstrated by the inclusion of the following text under the heading General Ethical Principles:

All research involving human subjects should be conducted in accordance with three basic ethical principles, namely respect for persons, beneficence and justice. It is generally agreed that these principles, which in the abstract have equal moral force, guide the conscientious preparation of proposals for scientific studies. 35

The guidelines acknowledge the evolution of the principles following the publication of the Belmont Report with the statement, “Beneficence further proscribes the deliberate infliction of harm on persons; this aspect of beneficence is sometimes expressed as a separate principle, non-maleficence (do no harm).” 35

The table of contents of the 1993 International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects , provided in Figure 3 , outlines the subjects the steering committee felt to be the most pertinent issues for research conducted in an international setting. In addition to the obvious influence of the Declaration of Helsinki, this document reinterprets many of the issues presented in the Belmont Report, in reports from the presidential commissions, and in 45 CFR §46, Subparts A, B, C, and D to provide an adaptable set of guidelines suitable for application across a broad spectrum of cultural and political environments. The notable exception to the similarities with the US regulations is the inclusion of a guideline titled “Compensation of Research Subjects for Accidental Injury” that provides for the following: “Research subjects who suffer physical injury as a result of their participation are entitled to such financial or other assistance as would compensate them equitably for any temporary or permanent impairment or disability. In the case of death, their dependents are entitled to material compensation. The right to compensation may not be waived.” 35 To date, no uniform program for compensation of human subjects injured in research is addressed in the US regulations.

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Table of Contents, International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects, 1993 35

The International Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical Research Involving Human Subjects was updated in 2002, and CIOMS continues its efforts to revise the guidelines as dictated by changes in research requiring human subjects.

THE GUATEMALA SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES STUDY

All the efforts described to this point promoted regulations and procedures based on an ethically sound approach to protecting human subjects who, by consent or proxy, will be participating in research. The ethics of the research environment seems to have improved as a result of these efforts both in the United States and internationally. Notable instances of particularly egregious studies have come to light since the publication of the Belmont Report, but most of these studies originated before that document was issued. One study in particular raised eyebrows for its similarity to the transgressions committed in the Tuskegee study and, after investigation, was found to have ties to the Tuskegee study.

In October 2010, the United States disclosed that the US Public Health Service sponsored studies of sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala beginning in 1946. This exposé began with the discovery of documents among papers donated by Dr John Cutler to the library at the University of Pittsburgh. Before retiring, Cutler was on the faculty at the university's School of Public Health following a long career in the US Public Health Service where he had been one of the staff members involved with the Tuskegee study. Hoping to gain insight into the Tuskegee study, Dr Susan Reverby from Wellesley was reviewing Cutler's papers when she came across previously unknown information about experiments investigating sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala that Cutler and his associates conducted. 36 An account in the American Journal of Public Health reports that “… more than 5000 uninformed and unconsenting Guatemalan people were intentionally infected with bacteria that cause sexually transmitted diseases” and many were never treated. 37

When the details of these experiments came to light, they precipitated an apology from President Barack Obama and specific directives to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, a commission appointed by Obama, to “convene a panel to conduct, beginning in January 2011, a thorough review of human subjects protection to determine if Federal regulations and international standards adequately guard the health and well-being of participants in scientific studies supported by the Federal Government. I also request that the Commission oversee a thorough fact-finding investigation into the specifics of the U.S. Public Health Service Sexually Transmitted Diseases Inoculation Study” ( Figure 4 ). 38

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Directive from President Barack Obama to investigate the Guatemalan studies, 2010 38

The Presidential Commission's first report, “ Ethically Impossible” STD Research in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948 , provides a detailed account of the history surrounding the Guatemala studies and all of the supporting evidence. In the preface, the Presidential Commission reports, “With dual responsibilities to give a full and fair accounting of events largely hidden from history for nearly 65 years and also provide an assessment of the current system, the Commission decided to publish two reports. This is the first report, a historical account and ethical assessment of the Guatemala experiments.” 38

The specific political circumstances in which the experiments were conceived and carried out is critical to gaining some understanding of how ethically questionable research, however ill-conceived, was carried out by people who most probably had good intentions. The significance of the deleterious effects of sexually transmitted diseases among troops in World War II and how those effects precipitated the experiments are difficult to understand in today's world of effective antibiotics. In the 1940s wartime environment, however, understanding all aspects of sexually transmitted diseases was perceived as a crucial aspect of the military's ability to field an effective fighting force for the war in Europe. The experiments must be viewed in this historic context to understand the powerful motivation behind the studies.

The “ Ethically Impossible ” report includes an excerpt from a 1943 letter from Dr Joseph Earle Moore, Chair of the Subcommittee on Venereal Diseases under the National Research Council, to A. N. Richards, Chair of the Medical Research Committee of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, in which Moore wrote that he expected “approximately 350,000 fresh infections with gonorrhea [in the Armed Forces], [which] will account for 7,000,000 lost man days per year, the equivalent of putting out of action for a full year the entire strength of two full armored divisions or of ten aircraft carriers.” 38 Moore estimated that the cost of treating the anticipated infections would be $34 million, equivalent to approximately $440 million today, adjusted for inflation.

Within this context, serious planning to meet the challenge of understanding and treating sexually transmitted diseases appears to have coalesced at the national level in 1942. Planning for these studies continued through the following year, with one of the principals suggesting “the possibility of using federal prisoners, Army prisoners, or conscientious objectors as an alternative” for research subjects. 38 In 1943, experiments began at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, IN, that continued for 2 years. The focus of the experiments was on efforts to infect prisoners with Neisseria gonorrhoeae to test various methods for prophylaxis and treatment. Isolates of bacteria were applied directly to the penises of subjects in an effort to reliably infect the “volunteers.” However, the failure to reliably infect subjects in this fashion clearly indicated that studies of prophylactic techniques would not be possible with this approach, leading to consideration of other options.

The studies were performed under the direction of Dr John F. Mahoney, then head of the US Public Health Service/Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) set up within the US Marine Hospital in Staten Island, NY. Mahoney directed the Terra Haute prison studies from his Staten Island laboratory, while 28-year-old Dr Cutler ran the studies at the prison. Following the end of World War II in 1945, the military support for the studies was less enthusiastic, but the Public Health Service remained committed to supporting the research with plans to move the research to Guatemala. A 1947 article Mahoney published in the Journal of Venereal Disease Information provides some insight into why the studies were moved: “It has been considered impractical to work out, under postwar conditions in the United States, the solution of certain phases concerned with the prevention and treatment of syphilis. These problems are largely concerned with the development of an effective prophylactic agent for both gonorrhea and syphilis and the prolonged observation of patients treated with penicillin for early syphilis. Because of the relatively fixed character of the population and because of the highly cooperative attitude of the officials, both civil and military, an experimental laboratory in Guatemala City has been established….” 39

As fate would have it, a Guatemalan physician named Funes, who had served a fellowship at the VDRL and returned to Guatemala, was essential to the transition of the studies to his country. In August 1946, Cutler transitioned from Terra Haute to Guatemala at Funes's urging. Cutler staffed a clinic that provided the regular health inspections required for registered sex workers and suggested that the facility provide an environment of “normal exposure” through which sexually transmitted diseases could be more predictably transmitted. The studies in Guatemala evaluated possible prophylactic intervention “in cooperation with the Guatemalan Venereal Disease Control Department” that Funes directed and the local penitentiary “where exposure of volunteers to infected prostitutes would provide the testing opportunities.” 38 Enrolling prisoners, a contained and restricted population, after they had had sexual intercourse with commercial sex workers known to be infected with sexually transmitted diseases, promised to establish, according to Cutler, a “rapid and unequivocal answer as to the value of various prophylactic techniques” through the preferred technique of “normal exposure.” 38

After beginning with studies of “normal exposure” in prisoners, Cutler expanded the population of research subjects to include patients in a psychiatric hospital and again tried artificial means of infection, including scarification—mechanically damaging the skin and mucous membranes of the penis—to enhance the likelihood of infecting the subject. An even more aggressive study included at least 7 women in a psychiatric institution who were infected by the injection of syphilis specimens directly into the subarachnoid space surrounding the brain. Only 5 of them later received medical therapy. 38 In addition, studies to follow the serology of children in a large orphanage were undertaken to better understand the specificity of tests for sexually transmitted diseases, an additional goal of the Guatemalan studies.

Studies in which subjects were intentionally infected were completed in the later months of 1948, and Cutler left Guatemala in December 1948 to join a WHO Disease Demonstration Team in India. From April 1949 to July 1950, this team worked to establish a venereal disease control demonstration in various parts of India and teach advanced methods of control for sexually transmitted diseases. Meanwhile, the US Public Health Service hired Funes and another Guatemalan physician, Dr Salvado, to continue “the observation of certain of the patient groups” after Cutler left Guatemala. Funes's staff collected data on residents of the orphanage, inmates of the penitentiary, individuals from the psychiatric hospital, schoolchildren, and the members of “various Indian tribes in the vicinity of Guatemala” who had participated in the experiments. Funes was hired to “advise concerning the clinical examinations of treated patients, their re-treatment as may be required, the collection of blood specimens for serologic examinations at periodic intervals, the preparation and shipment of all blood specimens collected for serologic examination” to the United States, and “the submission of such reports as may be necessary for the completion of the study of this patient group.” 38 Based on the one report available in the Cutler Documents, Funes and his staff followed approximately 248 people from the mental institution, completing 243 blood draws and 170 lumbar punctures. Several of those subjects tested positive for syphilis during the follow-up experiments. The subjects from the psychiatric hospital were followed until at least 1953. The published work resulting from the Guatemala experiments also indicates that Funes continued to do serological testing on the children at the orphanage until at least 1949.

The experiments in Terra Haute were conducted and supported by many of the same people involved in the Guatemala experiments with the same goal of finding suitable prophylaxes for sexually transmitted diseases. However, throughout their discussion of the background leading to the experiments in the United States and the subsequent Guatemalan experiments, the Presidential Commission provides details of concerns voiced among those planning the studies. These details construct a compelling argument that all along the way there was an undercurrent of concern that the studies proposed were at the least controversial, most probably unethical, and in some instances arguably illegal. The Presidential Commission reached the conclusion that “Conducting the experiments in Guatemala provided an opportunity to work with reduced concern for some of the key obstacles associated with the Terre Haute experiments: fear of adverse legal consequences and bad publicity.” In a footnote to the report, the authors point out that “These concerns followed the researchers to Guatemala, however, as evidenced by some of their efforts to limit and restrict access to information about the work.” 38

The Presidential Commission summarized their findings as follows: “In the Commission's view, the Guatemala experiments involved unconscionable violations of ethics, even as judged against the researchers’ own understanding of the practices and requirements of medical ethics of the day.” The report concludes

Although some individuals are more blameworthy than others, the blame for this episode cannot be said to fall solely on the shoulders of one or two individuals. The unconscionable events that unfolded in Guatemala in the years 1946 to 1948 also represented an institutional failure of the sort that modern requirements of transparency and accountability are designed to prevent. In the final analysis, institutions are comprised of individuals who, however flawed, are expected to exercise sound judgment in the pursuit of their institutional mission. This is all the more true and important when those individuals hold privileged and powerful roles as professionals and public officials. One lesson of the Guatemala experiments, never to take ethics for granted, let alone confuse ethical principles with burdensome obstacles to be overcome or evaded, is a sobering one for our own and all subsequent generations. We should be ever vigilant to ensure that such reprehensible exploitation of our fellow human beings is never repeated. 38

The second charge from President Obama to the Presidential Commission was to provide a “thorough review of human subjects protection to determine if Federal regulations and international standards adequately guard the health and well-being of participants in scientific studies supported by the Federal Government.” The Presidential Commission addressed this directive in their report Moral Science: Protecting Participants in Human Subjects Research that was completed in December 2011. 40

Regarding whether the regulations would prevent abuses similar to the studies in Guatemala, the Commission noted, “Existing evidence suggests both that the rules governing federal research today adequately guard against abuses analogous to those perpetrated in Guatemala in the 1940s and that current regulations generally appear to protect people from avoidable harm or unethical treatment, insofar as is feasible given limited resources, no matter where U.S.-supported research occurs.” 40 The report summary continued as follows:

The current U.S. system provides substantial protections for the health, rights, and welfare of research subjects and, in general, serves to “protect people from harm or unethical treatment” when they volunteer to participate as subjects in scientific studies supported by the federal government. However, because of the currently limited ability of some governmental agencies to identify basic information about all of their human subjects research, the Commission cannot say that all federally funded research provides optimal protections against avoidable harms and unethical treatment. The Commission finds significant room for improvement in several areas where, for example, immediate changes can be made to increase accountability and thereby reduce the likelihood of harm or unethical treatment. 40

The report outlines the Presidential Commission's observations and recommendations based on a thorough review of federally funded research, including studies that may involve human subjects in other countries. One issue the Commission raised was the general lack of accessibility to data: “there is no ready source that comprehensively describes its [the federally funded human research enterprise] basic characteristics, such as level of funding, or number of studies, subjects, or geographic locations. Instead, what exists are isolated pockets of information and some descriptive summaries.” 40 This difficulty in acquiring information prompted the Presidential Commission's first recommendation to improve accountability through public access: “accountability can and should be refined through improving access to basic information about the scope and volume of human subjects research funded by the government.” The commission cites precedent for this recommendation from the Institute of Medicine–issued Responsible Research: A Systems Approach to Protecting Research Participants , with its recommendation to extend the oversight system to all research, regardless of funding source or research setting. 41

Treatment and compensation for research-related injuries were also identified as an issue of concern, a subject that has been scrutinized regularly in past discussions as human research protection has evolved. Obama's Commission noted that this issue still required attention at the time of their review, pointing out that most other developed countries require sponsors, investigators, or others engaged in research to provide treatment or reimbursement free of charge to the subject for research-related injury or illness. As discussed earlier, one of the deviations from the general agreement between CIOMS and US regulations is the recommendation for subject compensation in the CIOMS guidelines. The Presidential Commission “draws a bright line affirming the view of most bioethicists and others, including the majority of nations supporting human subjects research around the globe, that human subjects should not individually bear the costs of care required to treat harms resulting directly from that research.” 40 Recognizing that previous bioethics commissions and other advisory bodies had opined in favor of compensation or treatment for research-related injuries with relative silence by the government, the Commission advocated a response as to reasons for changing or maintaining the status quo. This issue remains open with no progress as this article is being written.

The Commission also asked that the OHRP examine, recognize, and define when protections delineated in foreign laws and regulations are accepted as equivalent to US regulations and exercise its longstanding authority to recognize these protections when available. Protections offered by international partners have been a source of confusion, as the federal regulations state that equivalent protections from international studies should be accommodated but do not provide guidance for how they should be defined. This directive has been reevaluated several times since its inception, including a specific request from the United Kingdom in 2007 to provide a determination of equivalence for human research protections afforded by UK regulations. As of the Commission's report in 2011, the OHRP had not formally recognized any country's protections as equivalent.

The Commission also noted that the FDA, while not signatory to the Common Rule, does adhere to the regulations at 45 CFR §46, Subpart A whenever possible and accepts data from foreign studies that comply with certain international standards for human subjects protection, such as studies that abide by good clinical practice, the Declaration of Helsinki, or certain host country regulations. This practice should provide a model to develop a system for recognizing equivalent protections as currently regulated by provisions in the Common Rule.

In its final recommendation, Promoting Current Federal Reform Efforts, the Presidential Commission called for broad reform of federal research rules and procedures beyond simply addressing equivalent protections.

The Commission supports the federal government's proposed reforms to:
a) Restructure research oversight to appropriately calibrate the level and intensity of the review activities with the level of risk to human subjects;
b) Eliminate continuing review for certain lower-risk studies and regularly update the list of research categories that may undergo expedited review;
c) Reduce unnecessary, duplicative, or redundant institutional review board review in multi-site studies. Regardless of the process used to review and approve studies, institutions should retain responsibility for ensuring that human subjects are protected at their location as protection of human subjects includes much more than institutional review board review. The use of a single institutional review board of record should be made the regulatory default unless institutions or investigators have sufficient justification to act otherwise;
d) Make available standardized consent form templates with clear language understandable to subjects;
e) Harmonize the Common Rule and existing regulations of the Food and Drug Administration, and require that all federal agencies conducting human subjects research adopt human subjects regulations that are consistent with the ethical requirements of the Common Rule; and
f) Work toward developing an interoperable or compatible data collection system for adverse event reporting across the federal government. 40

Most of these provisions were included in the revisions to the Common Rule that updated the original provisions from 1991 and were effective January 21, 2019, with the exception of staged implementation of single IRB review for multisite studies. Twenty federal agencies follow the Common Rule, with the notable exception of the FDA. So far, no official indication of the FDA's intent has been provided, although the expectation is that some effort will be made to harmonize the regulations—at least in a similar fashion as previous agreements.

OTHER HUMAN SUBJECTS PROTECTION FAILURES

This exposition of how we have arrived at the current rules and regulations for protecting human subjects who participate in research is lengthy but is at best an outline. Even this abbreviated history should elicit an appreciation of the complexity of the ethics surrounding protection of human subjects in research. A fair question is whether these provisions have significantly altered the landscape since Dr Beecher published his concerns in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1966. A cursory review turns up a few exceptions to the relative safety afforded by the current protections, with three that are particularly instructive.

Jesse Gelsinger

Jesse Gelsinger had just turned 18, the legal age for consent, when he volunteered in 1999 for a phase 1 gene therapy study designed for treatment of ornithine transcarbamylase (OTC) deficiency. Phase 1 studies are designed primarily to determine the appropriate dose of a drug. Gelsinger was born with a mild form of OTC that was well controlled by diet and drug therapy; he had minimal risk of serious complications from the disease as long as he followed his treatment protocol. He did not stand to benefit significantly from his participation in the phase 1 study but felt that he should volunteer because of the knowledge that might benefit others.

Gelsinger died 4 days after receiving an experimental therapy consisting of a gene attached to an adenovirus that would theoretically serve as a delivery system to insert the new gene into the DNA of his liver cells. The death was unexpected in a relatively healthy 18-year-old, and the outcome precipitated a long and contentious investigation into how the protections that should have prevented Gelsinger from participating in the study were circumvented or ignored. The investigation uncovered questions regarding (1) information that should have been included in the consent form, (2) the actual risk posed by the study based on complications from similar studies that were not disclosed in reports to regulatory bodies, (3) why Gelsinger was enrolled in the study in violation of the protocol's inclusion/exclusion criteria, (4) the potential risk/benefit analysis based on the mild nature of his disease that would argue against his participation, and (5) an undisclosed conflict of interest for the director of the gene studies program that may have clouded decisions at critical points during conduct of the study. 42 - 45

Examination of this study demonstrates that the protections afforded to subjects are well established but still depend on the assumption that the individuals responsible for every step of the evaluation and approval of studies and those who actually conduct the research all perform reliably in their roles.

Johns Hopkins Lead Abatement Study

Another notable case revolves around the issues of appropriate consent, appropriate risks for children (or any vulnerable population), and disclosure of results obtained in research studies. The Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI), an affiliate of Johns Hopkins Children's Center, conducted a study evaluating the effectiveness of lead abatement programs in low-income housing in Baltimore, MD during the 1990s. The study recruited families to live in houses either untouched or treated with different abatement techniques to determine which processes were most effective in protecting children from the significant neurologic effects of elevated lead levels that were endemic among children living in low-income housing in Baltimore. The goal was “to find a relatively inexpensive and effective method for reducing—though not eliminating—the amount of lead in children's homes and thereby reducing the devastating effect of lead exposure on children's brains.” 46 A total of 108 families with young children were recruited to live in houses with lead levels ranging from none to levels just below the existing legal limit, and the children's serum lead levels were monitored. In two homes, the lead levels in the children crossed into toxic levels, but the families were not informed or advised to move out of the toxic environment. Eventually, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of the two children, and it raised significant ethical questions surrounding informed consent, appropriate risks, and disclosure of results that are reviewed at length in the article “With the Best Intentions: Lead Research and the Challenge to Public Health.” 46 The Maryland Court of Appeals opinion equated the multiyear lead study with the Tuskegee study in its egregious disregard for research ethics in a vulnerable population.

Ellen Roche

Ellen Roche was a healthy 24-year-old laboratory technician at the Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center. She volunteered to take part in a 2001 lung function physiology experiment in which normal pulmonary function in healthy volunteers would be manipulated by inhalation of hexamethonium, a compound that interferes with normal nervous system interaction with the lungs to mimic a mild asthma attack. Although it had been used in the 1950s to treat hypertension, hexamethonium fell into disuse as more effective drugs became available, and the FDA withdrew approval in 1972. Of note, hexamethonium was never approved as an inhaled medication. Roche was the fourth patient to receive hexamethonium in the trial. At least one previous subject had had mild persistent respiratory symptoms that the investigator dismissed as a cold. Roche became very ill, with significant pulmonary abnormalities presenting within 24 hours. The symptoms progressed to multisystem organ failure, and she died within a month. 47 , 48

The ensuing investigation turned up several concerns:

  • The literature search relied on PubMed and one contemporary textbook of pulmonary medicine to explore the potential use of hexamethonium for the purpose proposed in the research plan. Neither source revealed any indication of concerns, although other databases and older textbooks warned of significant pulmonary complications associated with hexamethonium.
  • No request was made to determine if the FDA required an investigational new drug application, even though the medication was no longer approved and had never been approved as an inhalational drug.
  • The consent form referred to hexamethonium as a medication but failed to mention that FDA approval had been withdrawn.
  • A few subjects included in previous studies used inhaled hexamethonium with no mention of problems in the subsequent publications, but two subjects did have significant difficulties that were not reported as the investigator did not consider them related to the drug.
  • The hexamethonium used in the study was of chemical grade and was not prepared as a pharmaceutical agent. 47 , 48

This list is not complete and raises many concerns, but the focus of the investigation became the lack of adequate research to confirm that the compound used to induce asthma symptoms was safe. The responsibility for this failure primarily attached to the investigator, with additional concern focusing on a review process that failed to follow proper procedures for approval of the protocol. During the follow-up, several articles from the 1950s reporting that hexamethonium could cause fatal lung inflammation similar to the pulmonary complications leading to the demise of Ellen Roche were identified. PubMed's coverage of the literature starts in the mid-1960s. In addition, review of the FDA records related to the withdrawal of hexamethonium in 1972 cited the drug's “substantial potential toxicity” as one element leading to the decision. 48

The examples of ethical issues from history and the scarcity of contemporary examples demonstrate that regulations for the protection of humans participating in research have evolved in a way that minimizes the probability of harm to subjects choosing to participate in research. These examples also reinforce the importance of individual responsibility to faithfully execute the requirements of their assigned roles. Failure of IRBs to provide appropriate review and oversight can lead to severe consequences, as can abrogation by the investigator to place the well-being of the subjects as the primary responsibility in any research protocol. Furthermore, these examples support the argument that no amount of regulation or oversight can completely remove the variable of individual failures to adhere to the rules or accept the responsibility associated with their role in research that may precipitate serious unexpected consequences. The rules and expectations for those charged with the review, administration, and performance of research requiring human subjects can only minimize the probability that these instances will occur. The point at which the primary responsibility of protecting human subjects from preventable harm deviates to focus on some other aspect of the research that leads to harm is rarely predictable. Simplified to the world of Monty Python, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author has no financial or proprietary interest in the subject matter of this article.

This article meets the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the American Board of Medical Specialties Maintenance of Certification competencies for Patient Care, Medical Knowledge, and Systems-Based Practice.

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177 Human Rights Research Topics: Bright Ideas List 2023

177 Human Rights Research Topics

Do you have a college research project or thesis on human rights and have been wondering how to prepare a good paper? You need a number of things, such as good research, analytical, and writing skills. However, the first step is getting the right topic. This is very challenging for most students, but we are here to help. This post provides a 177 human rights topics list that you can count on for the best grade. We will also tell you how to craft a great university human rights dissertation.

A Brief about Human Rights

Human rights are the basic freedoms and rights that belong to all persons in the globe, starting from birth to death. These rights apply irrespective of where you are, personal beliefs, or the way you decide to live your life. They cannot be taken away but can be restricted in some cases, such as if you break the law.

The basic rights are anchored on shared values, such as dignity, fairness, equality, independence, and respect. They are all protected by law. Because of their wide applications in areas such as the justice system and employment-related topics, you can expect to get many related school assignments and projects on it.

How to Write a Good Human Rights Thesis or Dissertation

Before we can look at the best human rights thesis topics, let’s look at the best process of writing it. This can be divided into six main steps:

  • Identify the study topic in line with your class teacher/professor’s recommendations. You can use our list of basic human rights topics that comes shortly after this guide.
  • Research the topic well to ensure it has ample resources. Then, identify the main points that will be covered during the study. It will be good to think about the entire dissertation right from the start because all parts are interconnected.
  • Develop a thesis statement. This is very important because it will be tested after analyzing the results.
  • Develop a good structure for the thesis. This is the outline that will guide you on what to include at what point. Carefully look at the current recommendation from your school. One of the best outlines you might want to consider include:
Introduction Literature review Methodology Results Analysis and discussion Conclusion Bibliography
  • Prepare the first draft.
  • Write the final draft by redefining the first draft. At this point, it will be a good idea to consider editing services from experts.

Next, we will highlight the main topics that you should consider in human rights. However, we’d like to remind that you can only pay for thesis and not waste your time over a tone of assignments.

Top Human Rights Research Topics

  • How does social discrimination impact people living with HIV/AIDS?
  • Same-sex marriage: Why is it more social compared to religious significance?
  • A review of international reaction to sweatshops in Asian countries.
  • A closer look at the flaws of morals for kids raised in the US compared to those brought up in Japan.
  • A comprehensive review of the employment problem arising from the surge of the immigrant population.
  • Human rights violations in a country of choice: How has it impacted its image?
  • War against terrorism: How is it impacting human rights?
  • Should prisoners retain their voting rights?
  • Should the US cut trade ties with countries that grossly violate human rights?
  • Universal human rights: Are they achievable in the modern world?
  • Is there a point where human rights can be justified in the interest of national security?
  • Use of cameras in public places: Do they violate human rights?
  • Non-governmental organizations’ operations: Are they strong enough to help protect human rights?
  • Promotion of human rights: Should it be the first priority for every government?
  • Capitalistic systems: Do they defend or violate human rights?
  • Comparing the policies for human rights protection of the United States and India.
  • A review of human rights violations during the 2021 US army withdrawal from Afghanistan.
  • Should the US be held accountable for the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945?
  • Human rights in the US and Latin America: A comparison.
  • Compare two historical human rights portraits in the 20 th century.

Argumentative Human Rights Topics

  • Is violation of human rights allowed during times of war?
  • Circumcision of infants: Does it violate their human rights?
  • Should women and men have varying rights?
  • What is the link between human rights and traditions?
  • Capital punishment: Should it be considered a violation of human rights?
  • Right for freedom to education: Should it be made available for all?
  • Social media networking services: Should they guarantee privacy for all the clients.
  • Is the US policy on immigration discriminatory?
  • Interest of states: Should it take precedence over an individual’s human rights?
  • Developed countries have a duty to promote human rights in the developing states.
  • Pet ownership should be considered a universal human right.
  • Childhood concept differs from one culture to another: Should the notion of child labor also vary?
  • What are inappropriate ways of fighting for human rights?
  • Development of a country: Does it depend on the country’s defense of human rights?
  • From a human rights perspective, which is the most important amendment to the US constitution?
  • Comparing Apartheid and Holocaust: Has justice been done for the victims.
  • Human rights in the 21 st century: Is the globe doing enough to address the crisis in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia and Afghanistan?
  • What are the most important lessons on human rights from World War II?
  • Human rights violations in West Bank: Has the globe done enough?

International Human Rights Topics

  • What does the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines tell us about human rights internationally?
  • A review of cases of human rights in the United States between the 1950 and 2000.
  • Analyze the impacts of discrimination based on color and race.
  • A thematic review of modern human rights movements.
  • Trace the evolution of human rights starting from the ancient times to the age of globalization.
  • What is the relationship between human rights and peace in a country? A case study of the Netherlands.
  • Disability in the UK is under attack: Discuss.
  • Who should people running away from human rights violations turn to?
  • Is it appropriate to deny human rights on the basis of religion and gender?
  • Violation of human rights in North Korea: How is the developed world preparing to tackle it?
  • Violation of human rights in Venezuela: Should the United States get involved?
  • The right to stay silent in a court of law: How is this likely to affect the accused person?
  • What are the best remedies for addressing violations of women’s rights in the Middle East?
  • Will the world ever get to a point where people will live without worrying about human rights violations?
  • What makes it so difficult to introduce gun control in the United States?
  • Who should be held responsible for cases of mass shootings in schools?

Controversial Human Rights Topics

  • What are the similarities and differences between human and civil rights?
  • Evaluate the violation of human rights in Syria in the 21 st century.
  • Police-related human rights violation: How can we prevent it?
  • Should prisoners have a right to vote?
  • Assisted euthanasia is a violation of human rights: Discuss.
  • Should persons who try to take their own lives be charged in a court of law?
  • What is the best way to punish states for violating human rights?
  • Countries arming themselves with nuclear weapons are readying to violate human rights.
  • How effective are laws on domestic violence in the UK?
  • All cases of human abuses in history should be tried and concluded.
  • Is the UN doing enough to protect human rights?
  • Holocaust: Is it possible for the world to heal completely?
  • Do you think that the Rwanda Genocide could have been avoided?
  • It is time to act: How do you think the global community should handle the problem of immigrants trying to cross from Africa into Europe?
  • The hidden danger of not addressing bullying in school.
  • Is disciplining a child a violation of human rights?
  • Are correctional facilities doing enough to correct the behavior of inmates?
  • Is imprisonment enough to punish murder criminals?
  • Making a case for life imprisonment and the death penalty for murder criminals.
  • Is abortion a violation of human rights?

Human Rights Discussion Topics

  • What is your view on the famous revolt of the Cockroach People?
  • Discuss the outcomes of the LGBT movements in the 20 th century.
  • A deeper look into civil rights movements from Malcolm X point of view.
  • Interaction between Japan and China during WWII: How did it impact human rights issues in the two states?
  • Discuss the biggest human rights violations in South Africa after Apartheid.
  • UN Refugee program: How does it help enhance refugees’ welfare across the globe?
  • French Revolution and human rights: A thematic review.
  • Human rights in medieval Europe.
  • Human Rights Act in New Zealand in 1993: What is its significance?
  • Which human rights did women across the globe find hard to access in the 20 th century?
  • Police brutality in Brazil: Are the efforts taken by the government enough?
  • Discuss transgender rights in Europe.
  • A review of transgender human rights issues in the United States.
  • Disability rights in the UK.
  • Comparing disability policies in the US and India.
  • Racial profiling by police.
  • What are the roots of racism in the United States?
  • Review the Trail of Broken Treaties.
  • A deeper look at the Chattel Slavery in the Colonial America.
  • Review the African-American male experience.
  • Reviewing the history of the Bill of Rights in the United States.
  • Analyzing the American Indian Movement: How does it compare with other human rights movements?
  • Human rights in modern cinema: How are whites and people of color-treated?

Interesting Civil Rights Topics

  • Black Power Movement: How did it impact the Black Lives Matter in 2020 and 2021?
  • Are the 20 th Century civil rights movements sustainable?
  • Comparing women rights movements in 2020 and the 20 th century.
  • How did Martin Luther influence the civil rights approaches that came after him?
  • Comparing the scientific Revolution, Reformation and Renaissance movements’ impacts on western thought.
  • Protestant Reformation: Discuss how Catholic Church’s corruption and crusaders of war contributed towards its formation.
  • A closer look at the human rights movements during the Industrial Revolution of between 1760 and 1840.
  • How did the teachings of the American Revolution help the secession movement and Civil War?
  • How did Teddy Roosevelt impact the progressive movement?
  • The impact of communism impacts world history.
  • The location of a civil movement is the most important thing in its success: Discuss.
  • What made people start nationalist movement in Prussia?
  • Discuss the results of anti-nationalist movements in New York.
  • Female and Islam oppression on the globe.
  • Reinventing a revolution: A closer look at the Zapatista Movement.
  • What is the link between music, protest, and justice?
  • Confederate Flag: Is it a symbol of oppression?
  • Review the voting rights of 1965.
  • The West Memphis Three.

Special Human Rights Debate Topics

  • Women rights in the first half and second half 20 th century.
  • Legalization of same sex marriage and its impact on global fights for human rights.
  • Human rights movements in the US and their impact on federal policies.
  • International human rights movements: How has it influenced the UK judicial policies?
  • Responsibility to protect: How is it related to the issue of human rights?
  • Suffrage rights in ancient Greek: A holistic review.
  • Human rights presentation in the philosophy of enlightenment.
  • Human rights violations during the First World War.
  • What are lessons did we learn from Hitler and Holocaust during WWII.
  • These five reasons are the main causes of human rights violations in the 21 st century.
  • The main causes of gender disparity in the US.
  • Comparing the state of human rights in the UK and Qatar.
  • Do you think the bible violates human rights?
  • Environmental racism: What are the main effects?
  • The importance of the judiciary in protecting human rights.
  • Women rights in the Roman Empire.
  • Segregation is a violation of human rights.
  • Discussing critical human rights issues in India.

Unique Human Rights Topics for Research

  • The collapse of the Soviet Union and Rise of Communism in Russia.
  • Comparing the Pan-African movement to the 20 th -century cultural nationalism of Latin America.
  • A review of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement’s goals and methods.
  • Abolition of death penalty: Why it is a major human rights issue.
  • Popularity of social media and its impact on human rights. A closer review of Arab countries in North Africa.
  • International Calvinism: What was the impact on European Culture?
  • Why do other countries not intervene in North Korea where massive abuses of human rights have been reported?
  • A statistical review of human trafficking in the 20 th century.
  • How can a person as an individual help to promote human rights?
  • Utilitarianism contravenes human rights.
  • Human rights institutions and their efforts in protecting human rights in Africa.
  • Military actions to protect human rights: Does it make sense?
  • Black Lives Matter Movement protests: What does the movement say about human rights today?
  • Does the UK constitution comprehensively cover the issue of human rights?
  • Global manufacturing: How has it impacted the rights of workers?
  • Has the International Labor Organization done enough to protect the plight of workers on the globe?
  • How does poverty impact human rights in developing countries?

PhD Topics in Human Rights

  • A review of the parts of the globe with the worst cases of human rights violation.
  • How does the internet promote human trafficking? A thematic review.
  • A comprehensive review of factors that impact the outcome of different trials in a court of law.
  • Legitimate forms of the death penalty.
  • What factors prevent people from getting justice? A literature review.
  • A comprehensive review of the impacts of legalizing drug use.
  • What factors prevent equal representation of women in top leadership roles in the developing world?
  • What are the major problems faced by LGBT couples? Propose possible solutions.
  • Racial profiling by police: A case study of Mexico.
  • A comparative review of human rights policies of three countries of your choice in Europe.

Other Human Rights Research Paper Topics

  • LGBT relationships: Why are they disallowed in some countries?
  • Comparing the rights of pets to human rights?
  • A review of human rights violations during quarantines caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • A review of the fundamental principle of the EU Commission of Human Rights.
  • Human rights violations in Taiwan.
  • What is the link between ecological problems and human rights problems?
  • Evaluate the most frequently violated human right in your workplace.
  • What is the UK policy on refugees?
  • A closer review of transgender rights in Europe.
  • Discuss physical abuses in marriage in the UK.
  • Evaluate the amendment of laws in France to suit LGBT relationships.
  • Prisoners of war: Do they deserve human rights protection?
  • Discuss the strategies used by the two countries with the best human rights records.
  • Comparing the human rights institutions in Africa to those in Asia.
  • Violation of human rights in Crimea in 2014: Were the remedies enough?

Need Assistance in Writing Your Research Papers on Human Rights?

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Human Rights Research League

Research. Education. Advocacy. Development. (R.E.A.D.)

Mission statement

The Human Rights Research League (HRRL) is a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations (ECOSOC) aiming at protecting individuals by placing acts contrary to human rights and international humanitarian law, systemic grievances as well as humanitarian emergencies on the agenda. HRRL seeks to contribute to knowledge and research based public discussion and problem analysis without geographical, political, confessional or other limitations or alignments.

As our name suggests, we are an organization primarily focused on research from the basis of a strong academic foundation. However, we recognize that lasting impact and positive change also depend on connecting academics and practitioners, combining research on root causes of human rights challenges with implementation of projects and policies addressing those grievances. 

To this end, we are engaged in four focus areas: Research. Education. Advocacy. Development. (R.E.A.D.), all with a view to bridging the gap between academic and practical approaches to human rights, and between problem analysis and implementation of solutions.

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Annually the Global Campus Research Programme provides an opportunity to academics and students of the human rights master’s programmes to join together in a research project of current significance.

Since 2014, it has become established practice to link the Global Classroom event to the research programme. The benefits of connecting both the activity of research and discussion is to give the opportunity to students, academics and experts to interact in an open a lively forum and provide input which could feed into the research programme and enrich its findings.

A Coordinator and Regional Researchers are appointed to carry out the research, coordinate the contribution of each regional programme to the Global Classroom and ensure that the final study respects the standards set. In addition to that, the papers/articles of the new research programme will be subject to a peer-review process performed by the Editorial Committee and Editorial Board in order to be published on the GC e-journal.

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New course on "Tourism, Conservation and Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples" to run in spring 2024 session 2

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HRTS 495a/595a Human Rights Across Contexts Tourism, Conservation and Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples Fully online course -- 7 weeks, Spring Session 2 (March-May 2024)

New Course!  Being offered for the first time, this innovative course will be led by staff and members of the Advisory Council of the  Initiative on Indigenous Peoples Affected by Protected Areas and Other Conservation Measures , a project of the   Indigenous Peoples Law & Policy Program (IPLP) .

Students will work to document the human rights abuses perpetrated by actors from the Tourism and Conservation industries and to identify and use UN mechanisms which could be activated to protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

Course content:  Students will have extensive opportunities to conduct hands-on human rights work, including: drafting case studies detailing human rights violations perpetrated in national parks in Asia and Africa; preparing communications and reports for the United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies and Special Rapporteurs; working in partnership with indigenous representatives to develop an online resources webpage; compiling legal tools to promote and protect the human rights of Indigenous Peoples and indigenous codes of conduct and indigenous led conservation projects. 

Background:  In July 2022 and 2023, the  Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Francisco Calí Tzay submitted his reports to the UN General Assembly on  Conservation and  Tourism . The reports highlight the human rights violations that occur in these related industries including patterns of land dispossession, evictions, militarization, extra-judicial killings, sexual gender-based violence, criminalization of human rights defenders or loss of indigenous culture. The Special Rapporteur also underlines the unparalleled opportunities offered by Conservation and Tourism for Indigenous Peoples to strengthen their rights to lands, territories and resources, development, social and economic empowerment, and to value and protect their traditional knowledge and cultural heritage.

Learning outcomes : By the end of this course, students will learn to think critically and analytically about the threats and opportunities generated by the Tourism and Conservation industries, recognize the key legal instruments and institutions of international human rights law that can be used to advance, and support Indigenous Peoples impacted by these two sectors in the protection of their rights. This experience will create a community of practice made up of students, community members, leaders, experts, and faculty that will continue the work of furthering the rights of Indigenous Peoples in this context.

This course offered by the  Program in Human Rights Practice in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. The course format is fully online and includes lectures, guest lectures, a symposium, group activities, and individual projects. The course is open to all UA undergraduate graduate students from AZ Online, Main Campus, and International Direct.  The course has no prerequisites, although some prior familiarity with indigenous rights, human rights and/or conservation is desirable.

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How do humans affect biodiversity?

Humanity impacts the planet's biodiversity in multiple ways, both deliberate and accidental. The biggest threat to biodiversity to date has been the way humans have reshaped natural habitats to make way for farmland, or to obtain natural resources, but as climate change worsens it will have a growing impact on ecosystems.

The main direct cause of biodiversity loss is land use change (primarily for large-scale food production) which drives an estimated 30% of biodiversity decline globally. Second is overexploitation (overfishing, overhunting and overharvesting) for things like food, medicines and timber which drives around 20%. Climate change is the third most significant direct driver of biodiversity loss, which together with pollution accounts for 14%. Invasive alien species account for 11%. 

Some models predict that climate change will become the primary cause of biodiversity decline in the coming decades. The impact of all the main drivers of biodiversity loss is accelerating and, as a consequence, so is the pace of biodiversity decline.

Growing demand for natural resources due to the increasing human population, more rapidly increasing per capita consumption and changing consumption patterns has meant that ever more natural habitat is being used for agriculture, mining, industrial infrastructure and urban areas.

Key areas of human activity causing biodiversity loss include:

  • Deforestation. Tropical rainforests are particularly rich in biodiversity and are being destroyed
  • Habitat loss through pervasive, incremental encroachment such as that caused by urban sprawl
  • Pollution such as that associated with widespread pesticide use and overuse of fertiliser which are 6 and 12 times greater than they were before 1961 respectively
  • It is estimated that half of the species at risk are threatened by agriculture
  • Water use in some of the largest water catchments in the world where dams and irrigation reduce water flows
  • Hunting and the over-exploitation of species such as in wild capture fisheries but also for wildlife trade
  • Spread of invasive species and diseases through trade and travel 
  • Climate change, as warming and changing rainfall patterns alters species ranges and the underlying water and chemical cycles which define current ecosystems 
  • Pollution from plastic waste although its long-term effects on biodiversity are far from clear

For more on this issue visit: Amazonia’s future: Eden or degraded landscapes? | Royal Society ; Preserving global biodiversity requires rapid agricultural improvements | Royal Society ; and Past and future decline and extinction of species | Royal Society

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  6. TERM 3: HUMAN RIGHTS, INCLUSIVITY, AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES || BUSINESS STUDIES GRADE 12

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  1. About Our Research

    Interview Research: Locations. Human Rights Watch's goal with any research mission is to gain enough information about an incident, or about repeated rights violations, to create an accurate ...

  2. A Basic Approach to Human Rights Research

    Since the 1960s and the origins of the modern human rights movement, human rights organizations have produced their own research. In-depth and well-documented reports, replete with testimonial evidence and analysis of government policy and practice, are the stock-in-trade product of human rights organizations.They serve as the basis of lobbying and campaign efforts, and they provide the ...

  3. Human rights

    human rights, rights that belong to an individual or group of individuals simply for being human, or as a consequence of inherent human vulnerability, or because they are requisite to the possibility of a just society. Whatever their theoretical justification, human rights refer to a wide continuum of values or capabilities thought to enhance human agency or protect human interests and ...

  4. Human Rights Research and Ethics Review: Protecting Individuals or

    Background. Human rights violations play an important role as determinants of, or structural barriers to, health -.Research, investigation, and documentation focused on human rights have led to the development of rights-based interventions , and the promotion of human rights in the core strategies of international health organizations ,.. At the same time, health and human rights ...

  5. Human Rights: Research & Analysis

    CSIS human rights research is led by the Human Rights Initiative (HRI). Launched in 2014, HRI promotes a proactive global human rights agenda that reinforces democratic values as a central component of a comprehensive foreign policy. It seeks to generate innovative solutions for government, civil society, and the private sector and works to integrate human rights priorities across U.S. foreign ...

  6. Projects

    In addition to comprehensive research conducted by scholars affiliated with our roughly 100 participating universities, the Global Campus also carries out a number of targeted joint research projects related to current developments and challenges in the field of human rights and democracy. These projects have included both EU-funded ...

  7. World Report 2023

    Ignoring human rights violations carries a heavy cost, and the ripple effects should not be underestimated. But in a world of shifting power, we also found opportunity in preparing our 2023 World ...

  8. What are human rights?

    Article 1 of the UDHR states: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.". Freedom from discrimination, set out in Article 2, is what ensures this equality. Non-discrimination cuts across all international human rights law. This principle is present in all major human rights treaties. It also provides the central theme ...

  9. Human Rights Technology

    Microsoft Research blog. Human rights are universal - every person on the planet is entitled to the same rights and freedoms that enable a life of dignity. In any given society, however, and especially across global society, the enjoyment and realization of human rights is not uniform. Human rights deficits are pervasive, disproportionately ...

  10. Topics

    The UN Human Rights Office and the mechanisms we support work on a wide range of human rights topics. Learn more about each topic, see who's involved, and find the latest news, reports, events and more. View all topics Go directly to a topic. Search Form. Countries

  11. About

    The Human Rights Project is an exploratory research and action initiative at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Through teaching, public programs, research, and engagement with communities in the region and globally, the Project aims at once to foster critical discussions of human rights theory and practice, and to engage with practitioners on the leading edges of human rights research.

  12. Human Rights Research and Data Hub

    The Human Rights Research and Data Hub (HuRRD) seeks to advance human rights research at UConn by supporting faculty and student projects and providing students the opportunity to develop research and data analysis skills that will advance their careers after graduation.

  13. UDHR research guides and resources

    UDHR research guides and resources. United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law, maintained by the Office of Legal Affairs (introductory note, procedural history, documents, video, audio and photo archival resources) Bibliography on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights : The UNOG Library prepared this bibliography on the ...

  14. Research projects

    The research project explores perceptions, practices and governance mechanisms related to human rights within internet platforms such as Google and Facebook. Funded by the Danish Independent Research Council (Sapere Aude). Research project. 11 November 2022.

  15. LSE Human Rights Past Research Projects

    LSE Human Rights Past Research Projects. Human Rights. Human Remains. Dr Claire Moon currently holds a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award for her project 'Human Rights, Human Remains: forensic humanitarianism and the politics of the grave' (2018 - 2021). This project explores the 'forensic turn' in humanitarianism and the effort to establish ...

  16. (PDF) HUMAN RIGHTS EDUCATION FOR ALL: A PROPOSAL FOR THE ...

    Human Rights and related human rights conventions, and the procedures that exist for the redress of violations of these rights (citations omitted).). 22 See Marks, supra note 18, at 131.

  17. Human Rights Project

    The Human Rights Project. is an exploratory research and action initiative at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. Through teaching, public programs, research, and engagement with communities in the region and globally, the Project aims at […] The Human Rights Program. is a trans-disciplinary program involving such diverse fields as ...

  18. Human Rights Summer Research Grant

    The goals of the grant are to strengthen global research opportunities for students interested in developing, implementing, and working in human rights. Special consideration is given to students whose research projects contribute to a senior thesis or project, or to students enrolled in the Human Rights Certificate. Students are encouraged to ...

  19. Why Human Subjects Research Protection Is Important

    Background: Institutional review boards (IRBs), duly constituted under the Office of Human Research Protection, have the federally mandated responsibility of reviewing research involving human subjects to ensure that a proposed protocol meets the appropriate ethical guidelines before subjects may be enrolled in any study. The road leading to the current regulations and ethical considerations ...

  20. 177 Human Rights Research Topics

    Unique Human Rights Topics for Research. The collapse of the Soviet Union and Rise of Communism in Russia. Comparing the Pan-African movement to the 20 th -century cultural nationalism of Latin America. A review of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement's goals and methods.

  21. Human Rights Research League

    Mission statement. The Human Rights Research League (HRRL) is a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations (ECOSOC) aiming at protecting individuals by placing acts contrary to human rights and international humanitarian law, systemic grievances as well as humanitarian emergencies on the agenda.

  22. Completed Projects

    Identifying Human Rights Issues and Problems and Developing Policy Framework for Providing Social Security and Healthcare to Migrant Workers : Dr. R. Kasilingam, Professor, Department of Management Studies, School of Management, Pondicherry University ... Final report of the research project titled "Status and Functioning of Local Complaints ...

  23. Research Programme

    GC Research Programme. Annually the Global Campus Research Programme provides an opportunity to academics and students of the human rights master's programmes to join together in a research project of current significance. Since 2014, it has become established practice to link the Global Classroom event to the research programme.

  24. New course on "Tourism, Conservation and Human Rights of Indigenous

    HRTS 495a/595a Human Rights Across Contexts Tourism, Conservation and Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples Fully online course-- 7 weeks, Spring Session 2 (March-May 2024). New Course! Being offered for the first time, this innovative course will be led by staff and members of the Advisory Council of the Initiative on Indigenous Peoples Affected by Protected Areas and Other Conservation Measures ...

  25. What is the human impact on biodiversity?

    Growing demand for natural resources due to the increasing human population, more rapidly increasing per capita consumption and changing consumption patterns has meant that ever more natural habitat is being used for agriculture, mining, industrial infrastructure and urban areas. Key areas of human activity causing biodiversity loss include: