ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the role of Taiwanese civil society organizations (TCSOs) in cross-strait relations, whose activities mainly include policy advice, support of human rights and assistance to victims of human rights abuses, support of democracy and debate about the political status of Taiwan. The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) is not the only example of a CSO in Taiwan that lives predominantly from governmental or "one-political-donor" money. The Judicial Reform Foundation (JRF) was founded in the fall of 1994 by a group of reform-minded lawyers from the Taipei Bar Association. Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) is one of the watchdog groups monitoring political and other human rights abuses in judicial system and politics in Taiwan and in the region. The New School for Democracy Taiwan (NSDT) lobbies the Taiwanese political representatives, it campaigns to put Taiwanese democracy into practice in cases of particular dissidents and trains the locals about democracy.
