Freedom Now is excited to announce the launch of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Document Search website – a free to use searchable database of legal case opinions. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) is a UN body composed of human rights experts that considers individual cases of arbitrary detention and renders decisions as to whether there have been breaches of international human rights law. This searchable database is a joint pro bono effort between The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Freedom Now, and Thomson Reuters.
The OHCHR officially launches this database today while it hosts a Commemorative Event for the 20th Anniversary of the UNWGAD. This one day conference, which is being held in Paris, will include panel discussions about the UNWGAD and its contribution to upholding human rights law. Panelists will include Freedom Now’s founder Jared Genser and former Freedom Now client, Mr. Haithem Al-Maleh, who was imprisoned in Syria earlier this year.
For the first time, this database will allow users to search most efficiently through UNWGAD opinions. Freedom Now believes that the UNWGAD Document Search website will serve as an invaluable tool for researchers, lawyers, and human rights activists allowing users to search UNWGAD opinions by country, human rights articles and instruments, type of case, and date. The database is available in English, French, and Spanish and is expected to include other languages at a later time.
Start your search: www.unwgaddatabase.org. And to see what Freedom Now has been doing, please go to our website at www.freedom-now.org.
Executive Director Maran Turner said, “As an organization that utilizes the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention mechanism and values the contribution this body makes to international human rights, we are thrilled to work with the United Nations and Thomson Reuters in developing this amazing resource.”
Freedom Now would like to thank Hogan Lovells US LLP and DLA Piper whose lawyers contributed their time and talents pro bono to work with Freedom Now on this project.