The 564-page World Report 2009, Human Rights Watch’s 19th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. It reflects extensive investigative work undertaken in 2008 by Human Rights Watch staff, usually in close partnership with human rights activists in the country in question.

Sixty years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the governments demonstrating the clearest vision on international rights protections, sadly, are those seeking to undermine enforcement. In their foreign policies and in international fora, they invoke sovereignty, non-interference, and Southern solidarity to curb criticism of their human rights abuses and those of their allies and friends. Governments that champion human rights need urgently to wrest back the initiative from these human rights spoilers.

“For the first time in nearly a decade, the US has a chance to regain its global credibility by turning the page on the abusive policies of the Bush administration,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “And not a moment too late. Today, the most energetic diplomacy on human rights comes from such places as Algiers, Cairo, and Islamabad, with backing from Beijing and Moscow, but these ‘spoilers’ are pushing in the wrong direction.”

The report documents ongoing human rights abuses by states and non-state armed groups across the globe, including attacks on civilians in conflicts in Afghanistan, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of  Congo, Georgia, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Somalia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan, and political repression in countries such as Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe. It also highlights violations by governments trying to curb terrorism, including in France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The report also addresses abuses against women, children, refugees, workers, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, among others.

Human Rights Watch World Report 2009.