International Federation for Human Rights - Spontaneous application

Our work

For FIDH, transforming societies relies on the work of local actors. Therefore, FIDH’s activities aim to reinforce their capacities and their influence.

It acts at national, regional and international levels in support of its member and partner organisations to address human rights abuses and consolidate democratic processes. Its work is directed at States and those in power, such as armed opposition groups and multinational corporations. Its primary beneficiaries are national human rights organisations who are members of FIDH, and through them, the victims of human rights violations. FIDH also cooperates with other local partner organisations and actors of change.

• Our mandate: Protect all rights: The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is an international NGO. It defends all human rights – civil, political, economic, social and cultural – as contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Our commitment: Three pillars of action: FIDH acts in conjunction with its member and partner organisations. Its actions are founded on three strategic pillars: securing the freedom and capacity to act for human rights defenders, the universality of rights and their effectiveness.
• Guiding principle: The accountability of all: FIDH’s work is directed at States as primary human rights guarantors. However, it also addresses non-State actors such as armed groups and multinational corporations. FIDH is committed to holding individual perpetrators of international crimes to account through the international criminal justice system.
• Ethics: Independence and objectivity: FIDH is a non partisan, non sectarian, apolitical and not for profit organisation. Its secretariat is headquartered in France, where FIDH is a recognised NGO. FIDH’s independence, expertise and objectivity are the hallmarks of its credibility. It maintains this by acting with complete transparency.
• Interaction: Local presence - global action: As a federal movement, FIDH operates on the basis of interaction with its member organisations. It ensures that FIDH merges on-the-ground experience and knowledge with expertise in international law, mechanisms of protection and intergovernmental bodies. This unique combination translates into joint actions between FIDH and its member organisations at national, regional and international levels to remedy human rights violations and consolidate processes of democratisation. It makes FIDH highly representational and legitimate.
• A system of governance: Universality and transparency: FIDH’s structure and operations place its member organisations at the heart of the decision making process and reflect its principles of governance.
• Proven expertise: FIDH using a wide range of methods that have proven successful: urgent responses, both public and confidential; investigative missions, judicial observation, and legal defence; political dialogue, advocacy, legal action, public awareness campaigns. The organisation relies on a network of international volunteer mission delegates and facilitates exchange among human rights defenders around the world in order to reinforce their expertise. It constantly evaluates its activities in view of becoming more efficient and regularly adjusts its short, medium and long term objectives as necessary.