Reports

The 60-page report documents human rights abuses against activists in India’s Orissa, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh states. Human Rights Watch found that grassroots activists who deliver development assistance and publicize abuses in Maoist conflict areas are at particular risk of being targeted by government security forces and Maoist insurgents, known as Naxalites.

<p>This report examines in detail eight NATO air strikes in Libya that resulted in 72 civilian deaths, including 20 women and 24 children. It is based on one or more field investigations to each of the bombing sites during and after the conflict, including interviews with witnesses and local residents.</p>

This book is the culmination of a decade of research by Human Rights Watch. It details the humanitarian toll of cluster munitions, analyzes the international process that resulted in the treaty successfully banning them, and presents the steps that nations that have signed the convention should take to fulfill its promise.

This 31-page report documents attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups since November 2008 that killed three Israeli civilians and seriously injured dozens of others, damaged property and forced residents to leave their homes. The rockets unlawfully struck populated areas up to 40 kilometers inside Israel, placing roughly 800,000 Israeli civilians at risk.

This 39-page report details six incidents resulting in 29 civilian deaths, among them eight children. Human Rights Watch found that Israeli forces failed to take all feasible precautions to verify that these targets were combatants, as required by the laws of war, or that they failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians.

This 80-page report is the first comprehensive report on cluster munition use by Russia and Georgia in their week-long conflict over the separatist enclave of South Ossetia. Human Rights Watch field investigations in August, September, and October 2008 documented dozens of civilian deaths and injuries from the use of cluster munitions, including casualties after the fighting ended.

This 71-page report provides witness accounts of the devastating effects that white phosphorus munitions had on civilians and civilian property in Gaza.

Civilian deaths in Afghanistan from US and NATO airstrikes nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007, with recent deadly airstrikes exacerbating the problem and fuelling a public backlash. The report also condemns the Taliban’s use of “human shields” in violation of the laws of war.

A provision obliging states parties not to assist with prohibited acts is an accepted and essential part of a modern weapons treaty. The draft cluster munitions convention includes such a provision in Article 1(c). Article 1(c) is based on extensive precedent from past weapons treaties and is indispensable to the humanitarian goal of the convention.

In this 131-page report, Human Rights Watch found that Israel violated international humanitarian law in its indiscriminate and disproportionate cluster munition attacks on Lebanon. The report provides the most comprehensive and detailed account yet of the nature and impact of Israel’s use of cluster munitions.

This 34–page report is accompanied by an extensive photo and audio slideshow, and documents the impact on civilian survivors of guerrillas’ use of antipersonnel landmines in Colombia, as well as the difficulties that such survivors face in obtaining needed assistance from the government.

This 146-page report finds that both Palestinian armed groups and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have shown insufficient regard for civilian life.

This presentation is an introduction to the wide variety of cluster munitions currently available. The functional characteristics of these munitions as well as estimates of the numbers in current stockpiles are included in the presentation.