The CLEEN Foundation, formally the Centre for Law Enforcement Education in Nigeria, hosts public forums where citizens and police can discuss concerns and grievances regarding crime and police conduct.

Communities and police forces can find themselves in an unproductive cycle of distrust. Community members are concerned about police misconduct, brutality, and corruption. The police, in turn, can see the community as hostile and uncooperative in their investigations.

The Commission for the Verification of Corporate Codes of Conduct (Coverco) conducts long-term, intensive, independent monitoring of labor conditions in Guatemalan apparel factories and agricultural export industries, verifying compliance with internationally accepted labor standards. Based in Guatemala City, Coverco is an inde­pendent monitoring organization formed in 1997 by members of civil society groups; it does not work as a consul­tant to management nor as a worker advocate.

In its 40 plus years of civil war, Colombia has had a long history of human rights abuses, especially against its children. One estimate says about 4,300 children die violent deaths in Colombia annually, which isn’t surprising, given that over 7,000 of them serve as “soldiers” on one side or the other of the conflict. In response to this, children from some of the most war torn areas of Colombia formed what has come to be known as the Children’s Mandate for Peace Movement.

Social Accountability International (SAI) has developed a set of voluntary corporate social responsibility standards called SA 8000. SA 8000 includes a code of conduct for labor conditions, based on established international standards, and a verification system to ensure compliance. In order for a company to receive SA 8000 certification, it must pass monitoring inspections by SAI-certified auditors. The auditors closely monitor the companies before and after certification to ensure their capability to comply with the standards and to require their collaboration with local experts.

Association el Amane pour le Développement de la Femme (EL AMANE) in Morocco built grassroots support by organizing 161 consultative meetings in 35 cities and villages. They engaged over 1,800 women in order to collect the recommendations that were included in a draft law to prevent domestic violence. Based on the statistics of civil society organizations working in support centers for women, nine out of ten women are subject to violence perpetrated by their husbands.

A group of Non-Government Organizations in Cebu City bonded together and created an alliance which formed the Task Force Tawhanong Pagpuyo (TFT) to respond to the growing number of victims who experienced eviction and their homes being demolished. This problem resulted from the onset of globalization and the government’s development framework which often violated urban poor communities’ rights to housing.

Visayan Forum, Inc. (VF), in cooperation with the Philippine Ports Authority, runs eight unique halfway house facilities in strategic ports throughout the country’s archipelago. In addition to providing center-based services to vulnerable migrants, this partnership helps to combat human trafficking in these seaports by preventing and intercepting potential victims of trafficking and apprehending suspected traffickers.

The Spanish and British governments used both international and national law to determine that Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet could be tried for human rights violations committed during his rule.

The Advocates for Human Rights (The Advocates), formerly known as the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, uses traditional human rights monitoring methods to document human rights abuses, but has made a practice of adapting this methodology to address emerging human rights issues. The Advocates has developed practical and sustainable strategies for adapting human rights monitoring methods to address domestic violence in Eastern Europe, and has used this tactic to develop a positive legal and social culture on behalf of women’s human rights in Bulgaria.

For more information on this tactic, read our in-depth case study.