Technology, Democracy and Society

Technology, Democracy and Society (HRTD) is a curated selection from the broader Human Rights Documents Online database. This specialized subset of documents, sourced from Human Rights Internet (HRI) in Ottawa, Canada, emphasizes the significant work done by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) globally in these areas.

Over the past decades, HRI has been serving as an unofficial depository for the documentation produced by non-governmental human rights organizations (NGOs) throughout the world. During these years the organization has gained Consultative Status with the United Nations and Observer Status with the African Commission on Human and People's Rights. The effective world-wide network in which Human Rights Internet operates, ensures the availability of a vast amount of material that otherwise would not be retrievable from the country of origin. It brings together a wide variety of reports on human rights issues, which would otherwise be very difficult to identify, obtain and consult. Many of the publications originate directly from countries where human rights are challenged.

The collection consists of +7,000 documents from over 400 organizations, including American Association for the Advancement of Science, Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Center for International Environmental Law, Center for World Indigenous Studies, Council of the European Union, and more.  Documents span from 1978 – 2022, and cover more than 200 countries worldwide, such as such as Switzerland, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Chile, Barbados, etc.

Human Rights Internet was affiliated with Harvard University's Faculty of Law from 1985 until 1990 (the organization was independent but worked in cooperation with the faculty's Human Rights Program). In 1990 HRI moved to Ottawa and was initially affiliated with the University of Ottawa (again, the organization was independent, but worked in cooperation with the university's Human Rights Research and Education Centre). In 1994 HRI left the university premises and now works entirely independently from its office in Ottawa.