Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch is an international nongovernmental organisation dedicated to investigating and reporting on human rights abuses worldwide. Founded in 1978 as Helsinki Watch to monitor compliance with the Helsinki Accords in the Soviet bloc, it expanded globally and adopted its current name in 1988. The organisation is headquartered in New York and operates through regional divisions covering Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa. Human Rights Watch conducts fact-finding missions, interviews witnesses and victims, and publishes detailed reports on violations including extrajudicial killings, torture, forced displacement, discrimination and abuses in armed conflict. Its work informs advocacy campaigns directed at governments, international bodies such as the United Nations Security Council, and multilateral institutions. The organisation also engages with media to raise public awareness and pressure policymakers. Human Rights Watch is funded by private donations from individuals and foundations and does not accept government funding to preserve its independence. It has documented abuses in peacekeeping contexts, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has called for accountability and protection of civilians in conflict zones. The organisation's reports are widely cited by policymakers, journalists and civil-society actors as authoritative sources on human rights conditions.