Human Rights Guide in the EU

The Human Rights Guide is an online information, education and a self-help platform. It assists in understanding human rights that are important in various situations in life. The Human Rights Guide sets out human rights using a thematic approach. In this way, people have an opportunity to gather information about human rights and research this in a specific rather than abstract way, concentrating specifically on those rights which are important in the particular area or situation. The Guide assists in understanding sources of help and how to complain if there is a basis for thinking that a violation of human rights has occurred. In addition, the Guide provides information for each theme about the corresponding national and international legislation, the practice of the courts and other sources.

The Human Rights Guide is a European scale collaboration project with each country that participates in the project having content prepared specifically for it. The Guide is being offered in the national languages of all partner coutries along with translations into Russian and English.

The work on the development of the Human Rights Guide was commenced in 2013. The Guide has been available in Latvia since 2016, in Lithuania and Estonia since 2017, in Bulgaria since 2019 and in Slovakia and Slovenia since 2021, in France since November 2023 and in Croatia since April 2024. The project is being implemented by a non-governmental organization, the Baltic Human Rights Society together with cooperation partners:

Estonia — the Estonian Human Rights Centre;
Lithuania — the Institute for Human Rights and Democracy Education;
Bulgaria — Bulgarian Helsinki Committee;
Slovenia — the Peace Institute;
Slovakia — the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Slovakia;
France - International Institute for Human Rights and Peace (Institut international des droits de l'Homme et de la paix);
Croatia - Human Rights House Zagreb.

The Latvian Human Rights Centre, the Resource Centre for People with Mental Disability ZELDA and the Resource Centre for Women Marta, as well as other individual experts took part in the preparation of the content for the Latvian version of the Human Rights Guide.

The Human Rights Guide was created with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of the Netherlands Embassy in Latvia, the Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office’s Nordplus Education Programme, the European Union’s Erasmus+ Programme, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia and the Active Citizens Fund.

The Guide is supported by its associated partners the Republic of Latvia Ombudsman, UNESCO Latvian National Commission, Riga Graduate Scool of Law, Defender of Rights of France (Ombudsman), National Consultative Commission on Human Rights of France, National Bar Council of France, Ministry of Social Affairs of Estonia, Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics of Lithuania and Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson Office of Lithuania.

The Human Rights Guide in the European Union was co-funded by the European Union within the project “Inclusive human rights education - a gateway to civic participation and common values of European citizens” No 2021-1-LV01-KA220-ADU-000028213 (01.12.2021. – 31.05.2024.) Neither the European Union nor the Erasmus+ can be held responsible for the deliverables of this project.

The Guide in the Baltic states is currently being supplemented with new themes within the Nordplus Adult 2023 project No NPAD-2024/10147 "Human Rights education - addressing emerging global challenges" (06/2024 - 09/2025).