One major area in which human rights have certainly come under pressure in recent years is security policy. This is a global phenomenon which includes Europe and Germany. The German Institute for Human Rights therefore paid special attention in 2008 to those security policy developments in Germany and Europe which threaten to diminish the value placed on rights to freedom. People often lose sight of the fact that there are human rights concerns behind apparently "technical" concepts such as data protection. The anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights therefore marked a welcome occasion for reflecting in concrete terms on the conditions people need to live their lives in dignity and liberty, including in the light of current security policy developments.
Editor: German Institute for Human Rights
Annual Report
ISSN: 1869-0564
48 p.
(PDF, 1,8 MB, not barrier-free)
August 2009
Author: Ruth Weinzierl
Policy Paper
ISSN: 1614-2195
5 p.
(PDF, 77 KB, not barrier-free)
September 2008
With Germany holding the EU Presidency in the first half of the year, one of the main issues for the German Institute for Human Rights in 2007 was the human rights policy of the European Union. At the end of 2006 the Institute made recommendations to the German government about how to use its presidency to strengthen the human rights dimension of EU policy. These related to the EU's system of fundamental rights and to various policy fields such as data protection in internal security, guarding the EU's external borders, immigration and asylum, and the European Security and Defence Policy. At the end of 2007 the Institute took on the reporting function for Germany for the new EU Agency for Fundamental Rights that was founded in March 2007.
ISBN: 978-3-937714-67-7
44 p.
(PDF, 429 KB, not barrier-free)
February 2008
Authors: Ruth Weinzierl, Urszula Lisson
Study
ISBN: 978-3-9737714-59-2
95 p.
(PDF, 1 MB, not barrier-free)
December 2007
74 p.
(PDF, 504 KB, not barrier-free)
September 2007
The Institute's summer 2006 lecture series "Slavery Today" marked the opening of a new priority area. It focuses on human rights tools with which to combat human trafficking, forced marriages and extreme forms of exploitation of labour. Great public attention was awarded to our study of the social human rights of elderly people under care (Soziale Menschenrechte älterer Personen in Pflege) which addressed structural and human rights deficits. The public presentation of the study set the stage for a series of consultations with representatives of politics, associations and science.
43 p.
(PDF, 752 KB, not barrier-free)
July 2007
In 2005 the Institute continued its campaign for a German signature and ratification of the Option Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Institute held a conference and conducted numerous talks, on the federal as well as the individual states level, in order to promote this prevention oriented human rights instrument. The Institute also participated in the discussion on German anti-discrimination legislation triggered by the public presentation of a draft law in December 2004. In the face of an emotional and partly polemical public debate, the Institute emphasized the daily reality of discrimination in Germany and pointed out that human rights obligations cover combating discrimination by private actors, too.
ISBN: 3-937714-25-1
42 p.
(PDF, 775 KB, not barrier-free)
August 2006
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