Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch

History and Formation

HRW is an International Non-Governmental Organization whose main objective is to bring about change in regions where human rights violations are being committed, by pressuring leaders through the publication of rigorous reports containing verifiable facts and hard data gathered by the organization’s staff of more than 80 reporters, as well as sparking international interest by bringing media coverage to these abuses.

Having first been established in 1978 under the name of Helsinki Watch, Human Rights Watch was first intended to monitor the compliance of the Soviet Union to the Helsinki Accords; its final act being an agreement that addressed range of prominent world issues. Many of the accords focused on issues of state sovereignty, as well as a codification of the spheres of influence dominated by the West and the Soviet Union, and presented a focus on détente, not exactly having placed the promotion of human rights on their main list of objectives but having established the base for change that would completely modify the political and social situation in Europe, by giving European citizens the rights of freedom of emigration and reunification of families divided by international borders as well as freedom of press, among others.

These were the rights that Helsinki Watch sought to protect and having been successful in doing so, eventually becoming a major contributor to the long-term preservation of human rights in that region during the 1980s.

Thereafter, Helsinki Watch expanded into different multiple committees:

Americas Watch was founded to address and expose human’s rights violations on the war-engulfed Central and South America, focusing on the abuses committed by rebel groups as well as by the governments and analyzing the role played by the United States on supporting and providing the abusive regimes.

Asia Watch, smaller in size, was created to focus their scope on the humans rights violations brought...