Foreword

The third edition of Human Wrongs, Human Rights, published jointly by British Irish RIGHTS WATCH and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, is very welcome.

This completely updated guide will help NGOs, lawyers and individuals to find their way around the various human rights mechanisms of the United Nations. The mechanisms can seem complex to those who are not familiar with them but, as this guide shows, they are in fact accessible and simple to use.

Although primarily aimed at readers in Britain and Ireland, much of the information and the insights contained in the guide will be useful to people in many countries around the world.

I congratulate British Irish RIGHTS WATCH and the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission for continuing to publish this useful guide and I encourage anyone whose human rights have been violated, or who is helping victims of such violations, to make imaginative use of the mechanisms the United Nations offers.

Mary Robinson
High Commissioner for Human Rights
United Nations
Geneva
September 2001