About library

The Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law formed an electronic library on human rights in Russian and English. Evgeniy Zhovtis, a lawyer and an international human rights expert (Certificate No. 450 dated 05 October 2007, issued by the Committee for Intellectual Property Rights of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan) owns the intellectual property right to its structure.

The library consists of more than 200,000 documents distributed in 44 sections. It presents documents of international law, including ‘soft law’, jurisprudence of international treaty bodies, foreign and Kazakhstan’s human rights legislation, methodological materials and guides, educational and other resources.

The library is unique in that it is the first attempt to structure documents relating to all fundamental human rights and freedoms in two of the six official languages of the United Nations – Russian and English. It aims to collect documents from various international organisations, including the UN, OSCE, organisations of Europe (including the European Union and the Council of Europe), Asia, Africa, America, as well as foreign legislation and the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The first three sections are dedicated to historical documents, international institutions and organisations, international instruments, and interpretation of international human rights law. These sections focus on general legislative and institutional issues relating to human rights. The following thirty-two sections are devoted to individual rights and freedoms as defined in international law. A separate block of sections addresses general topics, including the development of democracy; the rule of law, constitutionalism, the development of the legal system; the development of human rights, national institutions for the protection of human rights; security, the fight against terrorism, the activities of the army and special services; the fight against crime, corruption, and the activities of law enforcement agencies. The library concludes with sections dedicated to human rights education and resources.

The compilers of the library express special gratitude to the institutions and organisations that provided technical and financial support in creating the library, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the OSCE Programme Office in Astana, the United Kingdom Embassy in Kazakhstan, the US Embassy in Kazakhstan, the Open Society Institute (USA), the Soros-Kazakhstan Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy (USA), Freedom House (USA), the Sigrid Rausing Trust (UK), Stefanus Alliance International (Norway), the International (Norway), the Eurasia-Central Asia Foundation, and others.

The compilers would like to thank those who provided invaluable assistance in collecting documents for the library, including Adina Almenova, Ilyas Adilbayev, Tansholpan Zhumakova, Ekaterina Kavlis, Tamerlan Kazantsev, Gulmira Kuatbekova, Maxim Kudryavtsev, Svetlana Malofeyeva, Tatyana Nagornaya, Amina Nurlanova, Yulia Plotnerchuk, Galina Sviridova, Malika Sarsembaeva, Ivan Savitsky, Dmitry Tikhonov, Alisher and Alina Telovaldiev, Svetlana Khizhnichenko, Oksana Khizhnichenko, Margarita Shkoda, and Daniya Yarullina.

Special thanks to Sanzhar Danybayev, the chief developer of the technical support for the online library. Sanzhar created from scratch a unique file synchronisation system that significantly simplified and accelerated the data upload process. Thanks to his engineering solutions, hundreds of hours of manual work have been saved monthly.

His tremendous effort, time and dedication to the project resulted in a reliable and user-friendly system that has become an essential tool for users. Sanzhar demonstrated high professionalism and outstanding technical skills, making this project a benchmark of quality and innovation in file management.