British Irish rights watch has become the first human rights group to win the new and prestigious Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Human Rights Prize, which is awarded for “outstanding civil society action in the defence of human rights in Europe”.

British Irish RIGHTS WATCH (BIRW) is an independent non-governmental organisation that has been monitoring the human rights dimension of the conflict, and the peace process, in Northern Ireland since 1990.  Our vision is of a Northern Ireland in which respect for human rights is integral to all its institutions and experienced by all who live there.  Our mission is to secure respect for human rights in Northern Ireland and to disseminate the human rights lessons learned from the Northern Ireland conflict in order to promote peace, reconciliation and the prevention of conflict.  BIRW’s services are available, free of charge, to anyone whose human rights have been violated because of the conflict, regardless of religious, political or community affiliations.  BIRW takes no position on the eventual constitutional outcome of the conflict.

The PACE prize was given for BIRW’s “courageous and outstanding work in monitoring and bringing to light human rights abuses, and its fight against impunity in Northern Ireland”.   The panel of leading human rights experts who judged the prize also commended the BIRW’s “vigilance” in ensuring that measures taken to combat terrorism were in conformity with international human rights standards.