Non-partisan, its purpose is to "work for immediate, total and unconditional withdrawal of all Russian military forces [from Chechnya] and for the right of the Chechen people to autonomy".
Members of the board include former national legislator Ingvald Godal and the Norwegian PEN chairman Kjell Olaf Jensen.
Following the Moscow theater hostage crisis in October 2002, Ingvald Godal said of the terrorists that "I understand their action, even though I do not defend it".
He also suggested that the Prime Minister of Norway take initiative to an international criminal tribunal for Chechnya.
As a result, counsellor Paul G. Larsen at the Embassy of Norway in Moscow was summoned to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in what journalist Carsten Thomassen described as a "forceful diplomatic reaction".