Amnesty International (AI) as an international human rights organization has a credibility in India and the South Asian region. AI’s international campaigns, networks and expertise are taken as a strong point for the value addition to the human rights constituency and works in India. Amnesty International India (AII) has taken up some regional and international campaign issues successfully in terms of connecting to the people in general and media in particular. The regional and international work is one clear area that give us definite edge in our works vis-à-vis other human rights organizations in the country.

Further, India’s geo-political and economic dominance within the South Asia region, together with aspirations within the international community (India is a member of the new UN Human Rights Council and aspires to a permanent seat on a potential re-constituted Security Council. India has taken the leadership of the SAARC after the 14th SAARC Summit, held in Delhi, 3-4 April) places a challenge for AI India to engage with the regional and international issues in such a manner that the human rights constituency interested in regional and international issues came closer to Amnesty International India as their members and supporters.

AI India has registered a number of successes in achieving considerable mobilization around a number of regional and international issues and Amnesty International India has shown the tremendous possibilities of regional and international works in India. AI India has collected more than 13,000 names for the Million Faces Petition initiative for the Control Arms Campaign, and continues to campaign for Ratification of the Rome statute for the International Criminal Court – both by India and other countries. AI India has recently done a Global ATT Week of activism (September 13th-19th 2008) in 25 States and the Global day of action on July 12th 2008 in 9 locations.

The desk aims at:

• Communicating AI’s regional and international human rights concerns to constituencies in India;
• Generating activism and engaging activists to campaign on regional and international issues;
• Developing some regional campaign issues;
• Building national, regional and international alliances to combat human rights issues in the regional and internationally;