Statement of Mission
The Equal Rights Trust is an independent international organisation whose purpose is to combat discrimination and promote equality as a fundamental human right and a basic principle of social justice. Established as an advocacy and resource centre and a think tank, it focuses on the complex and complementary relationship between different types of discrimination, developing strategies for translating the principles of equality into practice.
The Equal Rights Trust is governed by an international Board of Trustees and is registered as a charity under UK law. It opened office in January 2007.
Strategies
The strategies for achieving the ERT goals include:
- Human rights advocacy
- Documentation of abuses
- Legal and policy research
- Consultations and training
Much of the work of The Equal Rights Trust is organised according to cross-cutting thematic and country priorities, for each of which a combination of all or some of the major strategies is employed.
Long-Term Objectives
1. To document, expose and help eliminate violations of the fundamental right to non-discrimination, formulated in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and subsequent international treaties.
2. To ensure greater accountability of States and non-State actors with a view to their obligation to protect individuals against discrimination and promote equality.
3. To empower victims of discrimination in combating abuses.
4. To improve the public understanding of the right to non-discrimination and promote a broader consensus regarding equality as a value in present-day societies.
5. To contribute to developing the substantive and procedural aspects of the universal human right to non-discrimination.
6. To promote effective enforcement of existing anti-discrimination law and policies.
7. To facilitate the adoption of comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation and policies, without which the right to equality is not adequately protected.
The ERT Approach to Non-discrimination and Equality
The ill-treatment in detention suffered by vulnerable ethnic minority men. The written law preventing a woman from inheriting property. The unwritten law obliging a father to kill his daughter because she is dating the wrong man. The immigrant stranded in a cycle of detention because he is stateless and there is no country to deport him to. The couple assaulted in a café because they appear to be gay. The indigenous people uprooted from their land. The child who will remain illiterate because she is deaf.
They all have something in common: disadvantage and discrimination. But the fight against discrimination today is fragmented, weakened by identity politics and there is little understanding of the overarching aspect of discrimination. The Equal Rights Trust works to break the closed boxes of the struggle for equality and to enhance solidarity among all who suffer from discrimination.
Taking stock of the highest achieved levels of protection against discrimination, best practices and current discussions, The Equal Rights Trust promotes a holistic, unified approach to non-discrimination and equality.
ERT aims at simplifying, harmonising, integrating and modernising the currently fragmented and incoherent ideas on and approaches to equality of rights.
In the short- and mid-term, the unified framework of non-discrimination and equality is promoted through the following foundational projects:
1. Legal Standards on Non-Discrimination and Equality aimed at:
(i) systematising and publicising in appropriate formats the existing scattered international and national standards for protection against discrimination;
(ii) publicising a comprehensive training manual reflecting the unified approach to equality.
2. Discrimination in Law Enforcement aimed at exposing in a comprehensive and systematic way the most important patterns of discrimination in law enforcement around the world and putting forward detailed recommendations for eliminating discrimination in law enforcement.
Other ERT Projects
The following Projects are currently under design:
- Discrimination against the Stateless Persons
- Multiple Discrimination
- Statistics to Promote Equal Rights
- Promoting Non-discrimination Laws in Selected Countries around the World
- Traditional Decision-Making and Discriminatory Customs and Institutions
- Corruption as a Roadblock to Equal Rights
- Poverty and Discrimination
- Paradigms of Educational Reform to Ensure Equal Opportunity to All Children
- Religious Freedom and Patterns of Religious Discrimination
- Segregation and the Cycles of Exclusion
Donors of the Equal Rights Trust
Open Society Institute, Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, King Baudouin Foundation, Network of European Foundations, Oak Foundation