A human rights organization founded in London in 1961 largely by the efforts of Peter Benenson (19212005), a Catholic lawyer. It is based in the UK, but there are several groups in other, mainly industrialized, countries. The fundamental concern of Amnesty is to seek the immediate and unconditional release of prisoners of conscience, as long as they have not advocated violence. It also campaigns against torture and the death penalty, and tries to produce independent, authoritative reports on countries' abuses of human rights.
Amnesty International (commonly known as Amnesty or AI) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) comprising "a worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights". Essentially it compares actual practices of human rights with internationally accepted standards and demands compliance where these have not been respected.
Amnesty International states that it is independent of economic, political and religious interests.
Amnesty International is sometimes criticized, but its principles and efforts are well respected by many.
Rationale
The rationale of Amnesty International is formed from several key ideas. Human rights are indivisible. Violating rights to protect other rights or in the name of “higher” causes undermines the principle of universality. Human rights will not be protected by governments alone. Governments have declared their commitment to human rights and have bound themselves by covenants, yet violations persist throughout the world. There are many pressures on governments to disregard human rights and it is at this point of failure that human rights organizations have a role to play. Defense of human rights requires individuals to act on behalf of others. The violation of one individual’s rights can set in motion a pattern of further abuses.
Early history: 1961-1979 and origins
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). At the same time governmental representatives, who made up the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, ruled that it had no power to interfere in the internal affairs of governments in order to act on specific human rights complaints.
Amnesty International was conceived by British lawyer Peter Benenson when, traveling to work one morning, he read of the plight of these two students in the news.
What started as a short appeal soon became a permanent international movement, ‘Amnesty International’, working to protect those imprisoned for non-violent expression of their views and to secure world wide recognition of Articles 18 and 19 of the UDHR.
By the mid-1960s Amnesty International’s global presence was growing and an International Secretariat and International Executive Committee was established to manage Amnesty International’s national organizations, called ‘Sections’, which had appeared in several countries. The international movement was starting to agree its core principles and techniques. Aside from the work of the library and groups, Amnesty International’s activities were expanding to helping prisoner’s families, sending observers to trials, making representations to governments, and finding asylum or overseas employment for prisoners.
Leading Amnesty International in the 1970s were key figureheads Sean MacBride and Martin Ennals. While continuing to work for prisoners of conscience, Amnesty International’s purview widened to include “fair trial” and opposition to long detention without trial (UDHR Article 9), and especially to the torture of prisoners (UDHR Article 5). Amnesty International believed that the reasons underlying torture of prisoners, by governments, were either to obtain information or to quell opposition by the use of terror, or both.
Amnesty International drew together reports from countries where torture allegations seemed most persistent and organized an international conference on torture.
Amnesty International’s membership increased from 15,000 in 1969 to 200,000 by 1979.
At the intergovernmental level Amnesty International pressed for application of the UN’s Standard Minimum Prison Rules and of existing humanitarian conventions; and was instrumental in obtaining UN Resolution 3059 which formally denounced torture and called on governments to adhere to existing international instruments and provisions forbidding its practice.
Recent history: 1980-2005
By 1980, Amnesty International, now a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and a UN Human Rights Prize winner, was drawing more criticism from governments. The then USSR was alleging that Amnesty International conducted espionage, the Moroccan government denounced it as a defender of lawbreakers, and in Argentina, Amnesty International’s 1983 annual report was banned.
Throughout the 80s, Amnesty International continued to campaign for prisoners of conscience and of torture, and on the other issues added to its mandate over the years.
Towards the end of the decade the growing numbers, worldwide, of refugees was a very visible area of Amnesty International’s concern. While many of the world’s refugees of the time had been displaced by war and famine, in adherence to its mandate, Amnesty International concentrated on those forced to flee because of the human rights violations it was seeking to prevent. It argued that rather than focusing on new restrictions on entry for asylum-seekers, governments ought to address the human rights violations which were forcing people into exile.
Apart from a second campaign on torture during the first half of the decade, the major campaign of the 80s was the ‘Human Rights Now!’ tour which featured many of the famous musicians and bands of the day playing concerts to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the UDHR.
Throughout the 1990s Amnesty International, now with a membership of one million led by Senegalese Secretary General Pierre Sané, worked on a wide range of issues and world events.
Amnesty International was forced to react to human rights violations occurring in the context of a proliferation of armed conflict in: Angola, East Timor, the Persian Gulf, Rwanda, Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. Amnesty International took no position on whether to support or oppose external military interventions in these armed conflicts. Rather it questioned the motives behind external intervention and selectivity of international action in relation to the strategic interests of those sending troops. It argued that action should be taken in time to prevent human rights problems becoming human rights catastrophes and that both intervention and inaction represented a failure of the international community.
However, Amnesty International was proactive in pushing for recognition of the universality of human rights.
In particular, Amnesty International brought attention to violations committed on specific groups including: refugees, racial/ethnic/religious minorities, women and those executed or on death row. The death penalty report When the state kills and the ‘Human Rights are Women's Rights’ campaign were key actions for the latter two issues and demonstrate that Amnesty International was still very much a reporting and campaigning organization.
At the intergovernmental level, Amnesty International argued in favor of creating a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (established 1993) and an International Criminal Court (established 2002).
Post 2000, Amnesty International’s agenda turned to the challenges arising from globalization and the effects of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US. The issue of globalization provoked a major shift in Amnesty International policy, as the scope of its work was widened to include economic, social and cultural rights, an area that it had declined to work on in the past. Amnesty International felt this shift was important, not just to give credence to its principle of the indivisibility of rights, but because of the growing power of companies and the undermining of many nation states as a result of globalization.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the new Amnesty International Secretary General, Irene Khan, reported that a senior government official had said to Amnesty International delegates: "Your role collapsed with the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York". Amnesty International argued that human rights were the basis for the security of all, not a barrier to it.
During the first half of the new decade Amnesty International turned its attention to violence against women, controls on the world arms trade and concerns surrounding the effectiveness of the UN.
Work
Amnesty International’s vision is of a world in which every person enjoys all of the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international human rights
standards.
In pursuit of this vision, Amnesty International’s mission is to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity,
freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.
—Statute of Amnesty International, 27th International Council meeting, 2005
This mission translates into specific aims which are to:
Abolish the death penalty End extrajudicial executions and "disappearances" Ensure prison conditions meet international human rights standards Ensure prompt and fair trial for all political prisoners Fight impunity from systems of justice End the recruitment and use of child soldiers Free all prisoners of conscience Promote economic, social and cultural rights for marginalized communities Protect human rights defenders Stop torture and ill-treatment Stop unlawful killings in armed conflict Uphold the rights of refugees, migrants and asylum seekersAmnesty International targets not only governments, but also non governmental bodies and private individuals (non state actors).
To further these aims Amnesty International has developed several techniques to publicize information and mobilize public opinion. Reports are researched by interviewing victims and officials, observing trials, working with local human rights activists and by monitoring the media.
Campaigns to mobilize public opinion can take the form of individual, country or thematic campaigns.
In situations which require immediate attention, Amnesty International calls on existing urgent action networks or crisis response networks;
Organization
Amnesty International is largely made up of voluntary members but retains a small number of paid professionals. Its organization is intended to reflect its principles of international solidarity and democracy. In countries where Amnesty International has a strong presence, members are organized as ‘Sections’. Sections coordinate basic Amnesty International activities normally with a significant volume of members (some of whom will form into ‘Groups’) and a professional staff, each have a board of directors.
The organizations outlined above are represented by the International Council (IC) which is led by the IC Chairperson. The IC may invite representatives from International Networks and other individuals to meetings, but only representatives from Sections and Structures have voting rights.
The International Executive Committee (IEC), led by the IEC Chairperson, consists of eight members and the IEC Treasurer. The role of the IEC is to take decisions on behalf of Amnesty International, implement the strategy laid out by the IC, and ensure compliance with the movement’s statutes.
The International Secretariat (IS) is responsible for the conduct and daily affairs of Amnesty International under direction from the IEC and IC. The IS operates several work programs: International Law and Organizations;
Amnesty International is financed largely by fees and donations from its worldwide membership.
Amnesty International Sections, 2005
Algeria;
Amnesty International Structures, 2005
Belarus;
Criticism and response
Since its establishment in the early 1960s Amnesty International has occasionally been criticized. From time to time Amnesty International publishes a selection of criticisms of itself including public statements, press reports and cartoons. Outlined below are some of main criticisms directed at Amnesty International and the organization's response.
Criticism: Amnesty International has been criticized for being biased in the selectivity of its coverage of human rights violations. This has been called "Moynihan's Law" after the late
US Senator and former Ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who is said to have commented that, the number of complaints about a nation's violation of human rights is
inversely proportional to their actual violation of human rights.
Amnesty International's response: Its intention is not to produce a range of reports which give greater coverage to the "worst" violators.
Criticism: Amnesty International has been accused of being politically biased. Governments have criticized not only the contents of its reporting but have complained that the timing of
publication has often aided their political opponents.
Amnesty International's response: If it is political, it is not because it is partisan but because it addresses and makes demands of those in power. Amnesty International claims to
address all governments openly and disseminate its information as widely as possible.
Criticism: Amnesty International has been accused of being ideologically biased.
Amnesty International's response: Perceived ideological bias is a misconception, Amnesty International does not work for or against governments, but against human rights violations.
Criticism: Amnesty International has been accused of being provocative.
Amnesty International's response: If it is perceived as provocative, it is not because it seeks to offend, but because it exposes abuses which contradict official versions of events.
Criticism: Amnesty International has been criticized for interfering in the internal affairs of state.
Amnesty International's response: Human rights are an international responsibility and a matter of legitimate international concern. Governments are accountable not only to their own
people but also to the international community. Governments have a duty to cooperate with international organizations, to admit international observers to their political trials and/or prisons,
and to respond to complaints raised at the United Nations. Amnesty International (2005). Amnesty International Report 2006: The State of the World's Human Rights. Amnesty International.
Diplomacy of Conscience: Amnesty International and Changing Human Rights Norms. Amnesty International: The Human Rights Story.
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