Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: Reflections on Dialogues between Practitioners and Theorists of Human Rights
- SECTION I NORTHERN INGOs AND SOUTHERN AID RECIPIENTS: THE CHALLENGE OF UNEQUAL POWER
- 1 The Pornography of Poverty: A Cautionary Fundraising Tale
- 2 An Imperfect Process: Funding Human Rights – A Case Study
- 3 Transformational Development as the Key to Housing Rights
- 4 Human Rights INGOs and the North–South Gap: The Challenge of Normative and Empirical Learning
- SECTION II INGOs AND GOVERNMENTS: THE CHALLENGE OF DEALING WITH STATES THAT RESTRICT THE ACTIVITIES OF INGOs
- SECTION III INGOs AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS: THE CHALLENGE OF DEALING WITH GLOBAL POVERTY
- Conclusion: INGOs as Collective Mobilization of Transnational Solidarity: Implications for Human Rights Work at the United Nations
- Index
4 - Human Rights INGOs and the North–South Gap: The Challenge of Normative and Empirical Learning
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Contributors
- Introduction: Reflections on Dialogues between Practitioners and Theorists of Human Rights
- SECTION I NORTHERN INGOs AND SOUTHERN AID RECIPIENTS: THE CHALLENGE OF UNEQUAL POWER
- 1 The Pornography of Poverty: A Cautionary Fundraising Tale
- 2 An Imperfect Process: Funding Human Rights – A Case Study
- 3 Transformational Development as the Key to Housing Rights
- 4 Human Rights INGOs and the North–South Gap: The Challenge of Normative and Empirical Learning
- SECTION II INGOs AND GOVERNMENTS: THE CHALLENGE OF DEALING WITH STATES THAT RESTRICT THE ACTIVITIES OF INGOs
- SECTION III INGOs AND ECONOMIC RIGHTS: THE CHALLENGE OF DEALING WITH GLOBAL POVERTY
- Conclusion: INGOs as Collective Mobilization of Transnational Solidarity: Implications for Human Rights Work at the United Nations
- Index
Summary
The role of human rights International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) has become increasingly important in an age of globalization in which they are seen as heralding a global civil society and a new world order based on a universal human rights. INGOs have been at the forefront of the “human rights revolution” – a revolution of norms and values that has redefined our understanding of ethics and justice. They have shaped the course of the human rights movement not only at the international level but also at regional and national levels. INGO involvements in global transnational networking, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, have been crucial to the development of the universal human rights corpus as well as its enforcement and monitoring mechanisms. One reason for the growing influence of INGOs within the human rights movement has been their ability to build transnational coalitions and mobilize global action on key human rights issues. This is evident in the role of INGOs in such human rights milestones as the 1992 Second World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, the establishment of a United Nations (UN) High Commission for Human Rights, and the establishment of the International Criminal Court. If the UN midwifed the postwar universal human rights movement, INGOs have weaned and nurtured it.
Despite these successes, however, the work of human rights INGOs (most of which are based in the West) is increasingly underscored by operational challenges and questions over their legitimacy in the global South where they do much of their work.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethics in ActionThe Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations, pp. 79 - 98Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006
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