Over the last 12 months, the Organization's human rights work has taken action in response to the need, as seen by Governments and United Nations organs, to reach out and apply abstract human rights principles in concrete situations. A growing number of countries have requested advisory services and technical cooperation in building up national human rights infrastructures. In the last year well over 100 human rights technical cooperation projects have been implemented in some 50 countries. In order to assist in carrying out human rights technical cooperation programmes and at the request of Governments concerned, the United Nations has established human rights field presences in Burundi, Cambodia, Malawi and Rwanda. This represents a new departure in delivering human rights assistance. The human rights officers involved seek, through training, law reform, education and information, to contribute to building the structures of a society respectful of human rights and to prevent violations. Their very presence has proved to be a confidence-building measure for fragile societies.
The committees established by human rights treaties are also focusing their recommendations on ways the United Nations can help States live up to their human rights obligations. Further, the committees themselves are undertaking field missions to understand better the conditions in which human rights must be protected, to try to defuse situations of tension and to help develop concrete solutions to problems. They are also increasingly active in the field of early warning and preventive action.
Monitoring human rights violations on the ground in order to provide accurate information to the international community and to contribute to bringing serious situations to an end is another area in which our activities have grown. In 1993, the first monitors were sent to the field and today more than 120 human rights monitors are to be found in the territory of the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. Further, and following a resolution of the Commission on Human Rights, agreement has been reached to send two monitors to Zaire. The role of monitors is not only to report on violations, but also to be active agents of prevention.
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