AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

Focus on Honduras

Since 1995, the AAAS Science and Human Rights Program has been assisting the Honduran National Human Rights Commission in the development of information management systems and data analysis capabilities. The Program has helped to develop a variety of information resources, including a full text-based documentation system and a human rights violations casework and analysis system.

Currently, the Program is working to develop a monitoring system, including a "thesaurus, " or catalogue, of economic, social, and cultural rights to be used and updated by the ombudsmen's offices; standard formats for documenting violations; and an Internet-based communication system to record and share information.

The headquarters of the Honduran Human Rights Commission

The Honduran National Human Rights Commission (Comisionado de los Derechos Humanos de Honduras) serves as the secretariat for the Central American Counsel of Human Rights Ombudsmen, (Consejo Centroamericano de Ombudsmen) an organization which spans several Central American nations. The Counsel, in turn, is the Central American regional conference of the Latin American Federation of Ombudsmen (Federación Iberoamericano de Ombudsmen). Dr. Leo Valladares, the Honduran Human Rights Commissioner, is currently vice president of this Federation.

Acccomplishments

• Press Records Database: The Program helped the Commission develop a full text database of press clippings dating back to 1980 in order to assist Commission staff in researching historic human rights cases as well as track current human rights abuses in Honduras.
  
  
• Complaint Monitoring System: The Program developed a computerized system to record, classify, and process complaints of human rights violations. The system is for the Commission's use only and is not available on the Internet.

Stephen Hansen, AAAS, and and Dr. Leo Valladares, Honduran Human Rights Commissioner

Current Projects

• Thesaurus of Economic Social and Cultural Rights: In collaboration with Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International (HURIDOCS), the Progam is developing a thesaurus which identifies and links terms refering to specific violations of economic, social, and cultural rights.

Web Sites

• Honduran National Human Rights Commission (CONADEH)
  
  
• Central American Counsel of Human Rights Ombudsmen (CONSEJO)
  
  
• Latin American Federation of Ombudsmen (FIO)
  
  
• Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Project Web Site
  
  
• Human Rights Information and Documentation Systems, International (HURIDOCS)

For more information about this project, contact Stephen Hansen (shansen@aaas.org), AAAS.

On a recent trip to Honduras, staff of the human rights commission were introduced to a new complaint monitoring system developed by AAAS.