A Dozen Amnesty International Campaigns

Introduction

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations on 10 December 1948. The Declaration is still the charter of Amnesty International, the worldwide human rights' organization that was established in 1961 by the British lawyer Peter Benenson, which now has almost two million members. Amnesty International is well-known for its appeals on behalf of prisoners of conscience and campaigns against inhuman practices such as torture, the death penalty, and female genital mutilation.

Amnesty's work mainly consists of informing the public in various ways. Before distributing this information, however, Amnesty thoroughly researches it. Fundraising, education, lobbying, and targeted appeals on behalf of individuals are also important Amnesty activities.

The IISH holds the records of Amnesty, an organization that 'began as one man's idiosyncrasy, became a movement and now is an industry.' These are the words of Jonathan Power, one of the very few publicists who wrote about the history of Amnesty itself.*
The archive contains the policy records of the International Secretariat as well as all research files about individual countries. Very special are the interviews with sixteen people that deal with the organization's initial period. The tapes are in the Image and Sound collection, as are many posters, T-shirts, and other information materials. On the occasion of 10 December, Human Rights Day, we present twelve 'weapons' used by Amnesty, selected from the IISH archive and image collections.