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Human Rights Resources: Getting Started

What are Human Rights?

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more.  Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

United Nations

Online Reference

Amnesty International Annual Report. AI also produces country and topic specific reports.

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Annual report on human rights practices worldwide from the US Department of State.

Human Rights Watch World Report. Human rights conditions from around the world. 

CQ Researcher. Provides background, chronologies, literature reviews, and contemporary developments on political and economic issues.

Oxford Encyclopedia of Human Rights. Human rights theory, practice, law, and history. 

Catalogs and Search Engines

UC Library Search. Books, e-books, journal articles and other content in one library platform for the entire UC System. Does not include content from some databases, numeric data, and other content. 

Google Scholar. Functions as a key word database for articles and books. On campus it automatically connects to licensed content held by the UC libraries.

Google Books. Search the text of the books, view previews from books still in copyright, and read the full text of out-of-copyright books. 

Sample Human Rights History Books

Human Rights Search

Human Rights Internet. Human rights information and resources to inspire education, advocacy and dialog. 

HuriSearch.  Custom search engine providing "one point access to all human rights information published by human rights organizations worldwide." From Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International.

What Convention? This search engine will help you find your issue or human right in the Human Rights conventions, treaties, etc where it is located.