New Rights Advocacy: Changing Strategies of Development and Human Rights NGOs

Nelson (public and international affairs, U. of Pittsburgh) and Dorsey (executive director of the Wallace Global Fund and former chair of the board of Amnesty International USA) suggest that nongovernmental organization (NGO) and human rights advocacy has recently been characterized by three important trends: the sometimes tentative embrace of human rights-based approaches by influential development NGOs and donor agencies; the adoption of economic, social, and cultural rights agendas by major international human rights NGOS; and a surge of work on economic and social policy through a human rights lens by specialized human rights NGOS and by NGO alliances and social movement campaigns. These trends aggregate to what they term the "new rights advocacy." They explain and analyze the emergence of the "new rights advocacy" by drawing on the fields of human rights scholarship, organizational theory, international relations, and development scholarship. Annotation c2008 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Paul J. Nelson is associate professor and director of the division of international development in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

Ellen Dorsey is executive director of the Wallace Global Fund and has served as the chair of the Board of Amnesty International USA.