In Copenhagen this month, Human Rights Watch presented its proposal for institutional reform to monitor host countries' compliance with international human rights norms. We also believe that the IOC should make host city contracts public.

The European Parliament has awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Memorial, a leading Russian human rights organization and to the prominent human rights activists Ludmilla Alekseeva, Sergei Kovalev, and Oleg Orlov, and other Russian human rights defenders.

(New York, October 9, 2009) – The award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama should encourage him to apply his stated principles to both foreign and domestic human rights policy.

The international community should press Georgia and Russia to bring to justice those who violated the laws of war, causing many civilian deaths and injuries and widespread destruction of civilian property in last summer’s short but deadly conflict. As an EU-funded independent, international fact-finding mission on the conflict in Georgia published its report on September 30, 2009, the lack of accountability is striking.

The Copenhagen Olympic Congress should create a permanent mechanism to monitor human rights in host countries before, during and after Olympic Games. Human Rights Watch, which has submitted a proposal to the Congress, is particularly concerned about potential abuses in Russia, host for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

The chronic culture of violence in the North Caucasus shows few signs of letting up. In July, Natalia Estemirova, a leading human rights advocate in Chechnya, was kidnapped and murdered. Less than a month later, two other activists, Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov, were killed. A new report from Human Rights Watch offers little comfort to those seeking justice for these and other crimes.