The federation's principal practical output is the Freedom of Thought Report, published annually since 2012, which assesses the treatment of the non-religious in every country in the world on a scale running from free and equal to grave violations. It is a standard reference on blasphemy and apostasy laws and is cited well outside the humanist movement.
What it documents is not an abstraction. Apostasy remains a capital offence in law in a small number of states, blasphemy is criminal in a much larger number, and non-believers in many countries face family and community sanction that no law addresses. The federation runs casework alongside the reporting, assisting non-religious people fleeing persecution, and it holds consultative status at the United Nations and other international bodies, where it is generally the only body making the argument that freedom of religion is empty unless it includes freedom from it.
Its structure is democratic: an elected board, a general assembly of member organisations, and offices in London and Washington. Its internal arguments are the kind federations have, which organisations should be admitted, and how far a movement whose common ground is a life stance should commit itself on political questions its members disagree about.
That tension is real and unresolved. A federation containing national bodies from countries where humanists are prosecuted and from countries where they are close to the cultural majority does not have a single set of interests, and its declaration is written broadly enough to hold both.