What we fund

In the International Human Rights Programme, we support activist organisations involved in documenting, campaigning against and litigating gross human rights abuses and empowering human rights defenders at risk. We provide core, project and seed funding in multi-year grants.

Where we fund

We support NGOs working globally, regionally and nationally. We directly fund organisations operating in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Argentina, Russia, Thailand/Burma and India.

Priority Areas

Our grant-making is organised along three priorities.

Priority one — defend the liberty and security of the person

Aims: To uphold prohibitions on torture and arbitrary detention, especially in the counter-terrorism and immigration contexts, to promote the embedding of these guarantees in the States’ legal fabrics, and to win popular support for their observance.

Methodology: We support the documentation of abuses, the capacity building of advocates and the challenging — through litigation and advocacy — of egregious State conduct.

Expected results:

• The respect of fundamental guarantees in counter-terrorism measures.
• The respect of immigrants’ right to due process and the use of immigration detention only as a measure of last resort.
• The civilian oversight and access to detention centres to ensure freedom from torture and the implementation of minimum humane standards of confinement.

Example:

Detention Action (formerly known as London Detainee Support Group): Our funding has enabled the organisation to continue to work with the UK government to reduce the detention of unaccompanied minors and to examine due process flaws in the UK’s “fast track” asylum process.

Priority two — ending impunity for gross human rights violations

Aim: To end impunity for gross human rights violations by holding abusers to account and ensuring victims redress.

Methodology: We support strategic campaigns and litigation, truth-seeking initiatives, and medical and social rehabilitation projects. We also fund initiatives that seek to collect, preserve, and present the historical narrative of human rights violations.

Expected results:

• The removal of obstacles to the effective prosecution of perpetrators of human rights abuses.
• The redress and compensation of victims of gross human rights violations through civil damages, public apologies, restitution and medical and social rehabilitation.
• The implementation of effective methodologies to prevent historical revisionism of past repression.
• The construction of a public discourse supportive of human rights.

Example:

Centro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (Argentina): Our funding allowed CELS to bring justice to victims of torture and enforced disappearances during the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, to remove legal barriers to the prosecution of perpetrators, and to provide psychological and social support to victims of gross human rights abuses.

Priority three — enabling human rights defenders

Aim: To support emerging human rights activists and those operating under threat and who are working towards our objectives.

Methodology: We support projects that build the capacity of human rights defenders, equips them with new technologies and protects them through litigation, advocacy and emergency assistance.

Expected results:

• Enhanced material assistance for activists under threat and the mobilisation of their colleagues.
• Challenges to egregious and stifling restrictions on the reasonable regulation and bureaucratic oversight of human rights organisations.
• Information and communication tools for defenders addressing data management, data protection and popular mobilisation.

Example:

Front Line Defenders: Our funding has enabled Front Line Defenders to continue to provide emergency assistance, training, and advocacy support through urgent appeals to human rights defenders around the world.