4.4 Human  rights monitoring
Monitoring is a broad term describing the active collection, verification, and immediate use of information to address human rights problems. Human rights monitoring includes gathering information about incidents, observing events (elections, trials, demonstrations, etc.), visiting sites such as places of detention and refugee camps, discussions with Government authorities to obtain information and to pursue remedies, and other immediate follow-up. The term includes evaluation activities by the United Nations as well as fact- gathering firsthand and other work in the field. In addition, the drawback to monitoring is that it generally takes place over a protracted period of time.
The major focus of United Nations monitoring is on carrying out investiga- tions and subsequently denouncing human rights violations as a means of fighting impunity. However, it would be both deceiving and simplistic to iden- tify human rights monitoring as being equivalent to a form of  police activity.

Human rights monitoring must be seen as the most fool-proof means of assessing a country’s situation, and impeding its human rights violations and which, subsequently, could create a basis for institution-building. A stable human rights presence in a given country can be described as an ongoing needs assessment and analysis mission. However, human rights monitoring can also be done on a sporadic basis, as is the case with the so-called fact- finding missions.
Some Governments, particularly totalitarian regimes, are reluctant to have an international human rights monitoring presence in their country, as they lack the long-term vision of good governance and see any attempt at cooperation as undue interference in their internal affairs. In such cases, monitoring can be done from a distance, often through the offices of a special rapporteur, which entails a greater effort in information gathering and checking the reliability of available sources.