Concept

Humanists International

Overview

Humanists International (known as the International Humanist and Ethical Union, or IHEU, from 1952–2019) is an international non-governmental organisation championing secularism and human rights, motivated by secular humanist values. Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, it is an umbrella organisation made up of more than 160 secular humanist, atheist, agnostic, rationalist, skeptic, freethought and Ethical Culture organisations from over 80 countries.

Humanists International campaigns globally on human rights issues, with a specific emphasis on defending freedom of thought and expression and the rights of the non-religious, who are often a vulnerable minority in many parts of the world. The organisation is based in London but maintains a presence at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, among other international institutions. Its advocacy work focuses on shaping debates on issues associated with humanism, the rights of the non-religious, and promoting humanist attitudes to social issues.

Humanists International is particularly active in challenging blasphemy and apostasy laws around the world and at the UN. Its annual Freedom of Thought Report indexes the world's countries by treatment of the non-religious and their commitment to freedom of thought and expression. Working with its member organisations, it also helps to coordinate support for those fleeing danger from states which persecute the non-religious. It advocates a humanist approach to various social issues, contributing to bioethical debates and arguing in favour of sexual and reproductive health and rights, LGBT rights, children's rights and women's rights, and in opposition to slavery and caste discrimination.

Outside of its advocacy work, Humanists International functions as the democratic organ of the global humanist movement. It holds a general assembly each year and a World Humanist Congress usually every three years; the last General Assembly was held in Luxembourg in July 2025, and the next Humanist Congress in Ottawa, Canada in August 2026.

Humanists International works to stimulate the growth of humanism and freethought and the spread of Enlightenment values around the world by supporting activists to form effective organisations in their home countries. In 2022, the Humanists International general assembly unanimously adopted the Amsterdam Declaration 2022, which presents as "the official defining statement of World Humanism".

Its official symbol, the Happy Human, is shared with its member organisations worldwide.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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But now the loud voice of our opponent bids us to stop. We are called to account for our transgressions. ‘Archæological interests are no doubt most praiseworthy, but one does not set about an excavation if one is thereby going to undermine occupied dwelling-places so that they collapse and bury the inhabitants under their ruins. The doctrines of religion are not a subject that one can be clever about, as one can…
Sigmund Freud, The future of an illusion
States what Humanists International is.
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These are so subordinated that, in cases of collision of duty, God, the universe of relations, comes before the profit of humanity, and this before the state. At another time Leibniz defines justice as social virtue, and says that there are as many kinds of "right" as there are kinds of natural communities in which happiness is an end of action. A natural community is defined as one which rests upon desire and the…
John Dewey, Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding
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But the narrower group has its relations, none the less, although, in ultimate analysis, they flow from and manifest the wider good, which, as wider, must be controlling. Without such minor local authorities, rights and laws, humanity would be a meaningless abstraction, and its activity wholly empty. There is an authority in the family, and the moral growth of the child consists in identifying the law of his own…
John Dewey, Outlines of a Critical Theory of Ethics
Close in meaning to Humanists International; the term itself is not named.
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Humanists International

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