Tribune
The Human Rights Tribune is an occasional electronic publication produced by HRI three times annually. The Tribune reaches a wide audience with analysis and information on a variety of current human rights issues. Each issue has a subject focus.
Published since 1992, the Tribune was originally a hardcopy human rights magazine available through subscription. However, in 2004 publication of the magazine was interrupted due to lack of funds. In 2005 it was relaunched as an exclusively on-line publication, available through HRI’s web page free of charge. The publication is advertised to thousands of individuals and organizations throughout the world through HRI’s e-mail listservs and web page.
On-line issues have included special features on issues such as sexual and reproductive health, conflict prevention, and economic, social and cultural rights in countries and regions including Kenya, Rwanda, Botswana, Uganda, Sudan, Serbia, Macedonia, Belarus, France, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, the Pacific Islands, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Canada. While the majority of the content of the Tribune is published in English, articles are also accepted and published in French and Spanish.
HRI has been publishing the Human Rights Tribune since 1992. Written for human rights activists, by human rights activists, the Tribune covers the worldwide struggle for fundamental rights from the UN and other intergovernmental organizations to grassroots movements. Each issue includes three sections: Features; Reports from the Field; and Departments. Both academics and researchers draft the articles that are included in the Features section. Their task is to analyze current issues of particular concern to the human rights community, such as preparations for the upcoming UN World Conference Against Racism, or East Timor’s struggle for independence. Reports from the Field provide a forum for activists to share their experiences, challenges and accomplishments. The contributors often work directly in the human rights ‘trenches’ in countries such as Venezuela and Cambodia.
HRI has an extensive network of contacts that is drawn upon to obtain submissions for the publication. In its re-launched form, it has published leading authorities on cutting-edge topics which combine human rights and social justice in policy-oriented articles. Contributors to the Tribune in the past year have included:
- Katarina Tomasevski, first Special Rapporteur on the right to education of the United Nations Human Rights Commission from 1998 to 2004;
- Bruce Porter, Director of the Social Rights Advocacy Centre;
- Norman Girvan, former Secretary-General of the Association of Caribbean States;
- The Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action;
- Katharina Rohl, Assistant to the Representative of the UN Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced people;
- Kirsten Young, UNHCR Assistant Regional Representative for Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam;
- Chris Chapman, Manager of the Minority Rights and Conflict Prevention Program at Minority Rights Group International
- Virginia Leary, Distinguished Professor of Law, Emirita, University of New York at Buffalo and University of California at Berkeley; and
- Ronald Labonte, Canada Research Chair, Globalization/Health Equity, University of Ottawa