The release coincides with the 25th anniversary this autumn of the most high-profile of all the concerts in the series – the “Human Rights Now!” world tour. The six-week, five-continent, twenty-concert tour of the world in 1988 was headlined by Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Youssou N’Dour and was seen by over one million people in-person.

Its mission was to raise awareness of the cause and it succeeded in tripling the movement’s worldwide membership. These new DVD and CD releases also arrive just six weeks before worldwide commemorations on 10th December 2013 of the 65th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the Magna Carta of the human race that was instigated after World War II by Eleanor Roosevelt and that has been an inspiration for Amnesty’s 52 years of worldwide campaigning for human rights.

The “Human Rights Concerts” series comprises four films:  The first film presents over five hours drawn from the all-day final concert of “A Conspiracy Of Hope” – Amnesty’s 25th anniversary concert tour of the USA in June 1986.

The second film is of the above-referenced historic “Human Rights Now!” world tour undertaken in September and October 1988.

The third film is “An Embrace Of Hope” – the October 1990 concert in Chile celebrating that nation’s liberation after 17 years of dictatorship. The fourth and final film is “The Struggle Continues…” – the concert staged in Paris in 1998 on the exact 50th anniversary of the signing in that city of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The DVD set and CDs – all digitally-restored from the original master tapes – feature thirty-six of the world’s leading musicians performing some of their biggest hits live in concert for the benefit of Amnesty.

The DVD set contains 120 songs extending over 12 hours of disc time. The set also contains 32 additional segments featuring contextual content and additional music performances together comprising almost 5 hours of supplementary features.  The full running time of the box-set is just 12 minutes short of 17 hours.

Three of the four concert films have never been issued before in any video or audio format. In the mode of that era’s “Live Aid” concert they were seen just once on TV – and were not subsequently made available for home enjoyment.

The fourth film – from 1998 – had a limited VHS & DVD release 14 years ago and has been long unavailable. (Some individual songs from the concerts were included on a single-DVD highlights sampler released earlier this year). Of the 16 hours & 48 minutes of content on the DVD box-set, 12 hours 40 minutes has never previously been available on DVD or any home video format.

The DVD box-set consists of six discs plus a 48-page booklet with rare archival photographs and extensive liner notes including a 10,000 word essay on the history of the concerts by writer Gregory Weinkauf.

There are also four CD sets – one for each of the four concerts.  The 1986, 1988 and 1998 concerts are presented on two-disc CD sets.  The 1990 concert is a single disc presentation.