With more than 200 delegates from 74 countries, the Front Line conference is probably the largest gathering of human-rights activists seen in Ireland. Yet the starkest illustration of the risks they face can be gleaned from those who could not make it.
People such as Digna Ochoa, a Mexican lawyer and nun who, like her father, was tortured for her belief in human rights. "It's injustice that motivates us to do something, to take risks, knowing that if we don't, things will remain the same," she is quoted as saying in a recent book. She should have been in Dublin this week, but she was gunned down by unknown assailants just a few weeks ago.
As Mrs Mary Robinson said yesterday: "The hardest thing is when you pick up the phone and ring someone and find that they aren't there, aren't alive any more . . ."
Then there is the case of Abdoulaye Math, leader of a human-rights group in Cameroon. He was forcibly "disembarked" from the aircraft bringing him to the conference.
Another delegate was Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The Israeli authorities refused him permission to travel.
On Wednesday, following a phone call from The Irish Times, the Israeli embassy in Dublin secured permission for Mr Sourani to travel. His travel agent told him yesterday that the earliest he could arrive in Dublin would be Saturday by which time the conference would be nearly over. He decided not to travel.