Photo: flickr
ISHR provides solidarity and support to defenders working to promote transparency, to combat corruption, and to safeguard and strengthen laws and institutions that protect defenders and promote democracy, accountability and the rule of law.
People and communities flourish in societies that respect human rights and the rule of law. This requires an environment characterised by a vibrant and independent civil society, laws that protect the rights to freedom of expression, association and assembly, institutions and processes that enable public participation, governments that are representative and accountable, and mechanisms that provide remedy and redress for injustice. Human rights defenders play a vital role in the establishment and maintenance of such an environment, and are often among those that are first silenced or attacked when authoritarian or illiberal governments or unscrupulous corporations move to dismantle democratic institutions and the rule of law.
Through this programme, ISHR provides solidarity and support to defenders working in deteriorating environments where there is a need to safeguard democratic institutions and accountability mechanisms, as well as those working in environments where there is an opportunity to strengthen human rights defenders protection laws and mechanisms.
Read our latest news on transparency and rule of law.
ISHR joins organisations from across Latin America and beyond in condemning the adoption of a 'Foreign Agents' law in El Salvador that seriously threatens independent civil society in the country.
On the occasion of the 37th annual meeting of the chairpersons of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies, civil society organisations made a joint call to preserve this ‘essential part of the UN’s human rights ecosystem’.
The 59th session of the UN Human Rights Council (16 June to 9 July 2025) will consider issues including civil society space, climate change, sexual orientation and gender identity, violence and discrimination against women and girls, poverty, peaceful assembly and association, and freedom of expression, among others. It will also present an opportunity to address grave human rights situations including in Afghanistan, Belarus, China, Eritrea, Israel and oPt, Sudan, Syria and Venezuela, among many others. Here’s an overview of some of the key issues on the agenda.
On 22 May, the African Commission concluded its 83rd ordinary session, which saw the State periodic reviews of Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, panels on the repression of human rights defenders, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and reparations for Africans and people of African descent, as well as the launch of ISHR’s report on the situation of defenders in African island States and a new e-learning module on the Commission.
At the 83rd ordinary session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Commission, or ACHPR), the African Commission reviewed Ethiopia under the State reporting procedure, as per article 62 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. We call on Ethiopia to do more to protect human rights defenders in the country.
As part of the 83rd session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Commissioner Salma Sassi presented the African Commission’s papers on the state of cooperation with national human rights institutions and non-governmental organisations.
