l Full details on declarations, reservations and objections attached by Commonwealth members to these treaties l Texts of Commonwealth resolutions on human rights l Reference to national legislations covering all areas of human rights l Glossary of human rights as found in 116 human rights treaties l User-friendly indexes: country index, terminology index and treaty index l Presentation of material in a most user-friendly mannr. From the foreword of Ms Rabab Fatima, Head of Human Rights, Commonwealth Secretariat London Respect for human rights and fundamental freedom lies at the heart of the core values and objectives of the Commonwealth. Human rights remain an integral part of the fundamental principles of peace, democracy, development, equality, good governance and the rule of law. None of these principles can be fully realized without embracing and embedding the spirit and letter of the matrix of international human rights instruments that is now a feature of our global community.

The number and variety of human rights instruments has been increasing ever since the 1948 adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Indeed, there is hardly any year, it seems, in which a new international or regional human rights instruments has not either been initiated or concluded, covering various areas of human rights. For anyone with an interest in tracking these issues, the task of ascertaining the status and nuances of State adherence to international human rights instruments can seem a most daunting and bewildering one.

This Guide attempts to meet this challenge in the context of Commonwealth members. The attempt to provide legal text and brief summary of more than 100 human rights instruments covering 16 major areas of human rights deserves recognition. Before this time it has been difficult to find a single resource which places not only the text of all these instruments in one single volume, but also provides a brief summary of each, and indicates the participation status and any declarations or reservations entered into by Commonwealth countries. The Guide has been developed by its author to assist policy-makers, judiciaries, academicians, researchers, students and civil society organizations to understand and appreciate the framework of human rights instruments presently applying within Commonwealth member countries. The Guide is a welcome addition in the human rights literature in general and the Commonwealth human rights reference material in particular. What the Guide perhaps reveals, standing back from its details, is that a lot more work needs to be done before Commonwealth members can account for achieving universalization of all these instruments. In this regard, the Guide provides a valuable research and reference tool. As the status of signature, accession or ratification is always evolving, it is to be hoped that the resource might be updated accordingly. This Guide has been compiled and edited by the author in his personal capacity and should not be taken to represent the official position or views of the Commonwealth Secretariat.