The Okinawa Peace Prize Selection Committee has selected the certified non-profit organization Human Rights Now as the recipient of the 12th Okinawa Peace Prize. The organization's activities contribute to the promotion of the Okinawa Peace Prize's principles of "realizing peace and non-violence" and "realizing human security," and are therefore highly commendable. 　The organization was founded in 2006 by a group of human rights professionals, including lawyers, researchers, and journalists, with the aim of eliminating serious human rights violations around the world. It became a specified non-profit organization in 2008, received UN special consultative status in 2012, and became a certified specified non-profit organization in 2014. It continues to operate across borders as an international human rights NGO based in Japan. 　At a time when international interest in the human rights situation around the world is growing, the organization works to create a fair world free of conflict and human rights violations, based on internationally established human rights standards, and operates on three pillars: fact-finding, policy advocacy, and empowerment support. The organization plays an important role in protecting and promoting human rights, which are universal values ​​of humanity. 　Its activities include investigating and publishing a wide range of human rights issues, including human rights in conflict situations, violence against women, child labor, harsh labor, protection of human rights activists, and business and human rights, in a wide range of countries and regions, mainly in Asia, and speaking out on behalf of victims. Recently, it has sounded the alarm about the dangers of emerging technologies and weapons issues. It also engages in advocacy activities with the governments, companies, and the United Nations to seek solutions to human rights issues, and promotes the dissemination and establishment of human rights norms through human rights education activities and human rights training for practitioners, thereby making a significant contribution to peacebuilding in the Asia-Pacific region.