International Co-Operation

The Center works in co-operation with various human rights organizations and institutions in other countries. It is a sister organization to the Danish Center for Human Rights, the Norwegian Institute for Human Rights, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden and the Abo Akademi University Institute for Human Rights in Finland and forms part of the Nordic School of Human Rights Research. The Center takes part in the publication of the Nordic Journal of Human Rights.

The Center is also a member of the Association of Human Rights Institutes – AHRI – founded in Iceland in September 2000.

The Center hosts the Human Rights Education Project.

The Center is a member of the UNITED network.

The Center coordinates the International 16 Day Campaign to End Violence Against Women and the European Action Week Against Racism in Iceland.

The Center forms part of the NGO coalition for an Optional Protocol to the ICESCR.

Association of Human Rights Institutes – AHRI –

The Icelandic Human Rights Center is a member of the Association of Human Rights Institutes – AHRI – which was founded in Iceland in September 2000. The director of the Icelandic Human Rights Centre was elected its first chairperson.

The objectives of the Association are to promote research, education and discussion in the field of human rights.

The activities of the Association are inter alia:

· Functioning as a platform for academic discussions by organising seminars or conferences e.g;

· Promoting cooperation on research and education activities;

· Initiating new research and education activities;

· Facilitating the exchange of staff members and PhD students between the participating institutes;

· Giving, on request or on its own initiative, advice and consultancy to inter governmental organisations, other international bodies, governments, parliaments, political parties, the judiciary, the legal profession, social institutions and groups.


Human Rights in Development Yearbook

The Human Rights in Development Yearbook is a joint project of the Christian Michelsen Institute, Bergen; the Danish Centre for Human Rights, Copenhagen; the Icelandic Human Rights Centre, Reykjavik; the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Vienna; the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, Utrecht; the Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, Oslo; and the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Lund.

This publication series started in 1985. The purpose of the project is to publish comprehensive assessments of human rights trends in a number of developing countries and the Yearbook has proven itself to be a unique source of information and documentation of the human rights situation in different selected developing countries. This publication is geared to a broad readership, including government agencies, donors, embassies, the mass media, non-governmental organizations, the academic community and the interested public. The Human Rights in Development Yearbook is available at Brill Academic Publishers.

The Human Rights Education Project (HREP)

The Icelandic Human Rights Center has co-oporated with the United Nations University for Peace and the Government of the Netherlands on the Human Rights Education Project. Four human rights experts, Dr. Magdalena Sepúlveda, Dr. Theo van Banning, Gudrun D. Gudmundsdottir and Christine Chamoun, have developed this project which comprises three books and a CD-ROM:

 The Human Rights Reference Handbook provides an introduction to the main topics of international human rights law. It reviews, inter alia, standards, supervisory mechanisms, principal human rights organisations and international actors. In addition it provides a detailed examination of twelve substantive rights and twelve vulnerable groups. 

Universal and Regional Human Rights Protection. Cases and Commentaries brings together a selection of the case-law of four important human rights supervisory bodies, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights, and the African Commission on Human and People's Rights, with the aim of facilitating access to and understanding of the work of these bodies. 

Human Rights Instruments is a compilation which includes more than one hundred of the most important general standards such as the main United Nations conventions, the main general regional conventions and the eight major ILO conventions as well as declarations and resolutions of international organizations and numerous other relevant instruments in the field of public international law, humanitarian law and refugee law.

In addition to the three books, the Human Rights Education ProjectCD-ROM includes a CD-ROM, Human Rights Concepts, Ideas and Fora. The CD-ROM contains the three books, the full texts of the documents excerpted in Human Rights Instruments and the cases analysed in Universal and Regional Human Rights Protection. Cases and Commentaries, as well as additional useful materials on a broad spectrum of human rights topics.

 Nordic Journal of Human Rights

The Nordic Journal of Human Rights is a multi-disciplinary journal on human rights. The Journal is a quarterly published by the Universitetsforlaget in Oslo. The journal is published by the Law Faculty of the University of Oslo in co-operation with the Nordic human rights institutes and several Norwegian human rights and humanitarian organisations.

Icelandic Human Rights Centre

Túngata 14 | 101 Reykjavík | Sími 552 2720 | info[at]humanrights.is

The office is open from 9-12 and 13-16