About the Award

Each year, the International League for Human Rights presents its Human Rights Award to a brave individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the promotion and protection of international human rights and justice, which form the foundation for a peaceful civil society.

This year, the League honors Senator George J. Mitchell for his outstanding achievement in working toward a resolution of the conflict in Northern Ireland as well as his promotion of peace and human rights as chair of the International Crisis Group, a private, Brussels-based, multinational organization devoted to reinforcing the capacity and resolve of the international community to prevent crises ranging from Kosovo to Rwanda.

Senator Mitchell's patience, fairness and vision have contributed powerfully toward a solution for one of the world's most intractable conflicts. Inclusion of human rights as a critical component of the Good Friday peace agreement has raised the standards for international crisis resolution and peacemaking.

Senator Mitchell's commendable leadership of the International Crisis Group (ICG) has enabled the ICG to assume an increasingly vital role in sounding earning warnings about the world's conflicts and applying the expertise of its board members, including former heads of state and government, foreign ministers, MPs, and leading figures in business and the media, to deep-rooted problems of communal strife.

The League recognizes that Senator Mitchell--in the tradition of our founders Roger Baldwin and Eleanor Roosevelt--has made an outstanding contribution toward the cause of international justice and human rights and has served as a role model for conflict mediators everywhere. He joins a long line of other courageous individuals who have received the League's award since 1968, including Andrei Sakharov, Elie Wiesel, Mary Robinson and Kim Dae-jung.

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