New Rights Advocacy

233 Pages·2010·9.54 MB·English

New Rights Advocacy
Advancing Human Rights
Sumner B. Twiss, John Kelsay, Terry Coonan, Series Editors
Editorial Board
Nigel Biggar
Stanley Cohen
Michael Davis
Mark Ensalaco
Gerrie ter Haar
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
Simeon Ilesanmi
John Langan, SJ
David Little
Dan Maier-Katkin
Juan E. Mendez
Ann Elizabeth Moore
Michael H. Posner
Fernando Teson
Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights
JUTTA M. JOACHIM
Breaking Silence: The Case That Changed the Face of Human Rights
RICHARD ALAN WHITE
For All Peoples and All Nations: The Ecumenical Church and Human Rights
JOHN S. NURSER
Freedom from Want: The Human Right to Adequate Food
GEORGE KENT
New Rights Advocacy: Changing Strategies of Development and
Human Rights NGOs
PAUL J. NELSON AND ELLEN DORSEY
Power and Principle: Human Rights Programming in
International Organizations
JOEL E. OESTREICH
Protecting Human Rights: A Comparative Study
TODD LANDMAN
The Rights of God: Islam, Human Rights, and Comparative Ethics
IRENE OH
New Rights Advocacy
Changing Strategies of
Development and
Human Rights NGOs
Paul J. Nelson
Ellen Dorsey
Georgetown University Press/Washington, D.C.
Georgetown University Press, Washington, D.C.
www.press.georgetown.edu
2008 by Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this
book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nelson, Paul J., 1956-
New rights advocacy : changing strategies of development and human
rights ngos / Paul J. Nelson, Ellen Dorsey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-58901-205-9 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-58901-204-2
(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Non-governmental organizations. 2. Human rights. I. Dorsey, Ellen.
II. Title.
JZ4841.N33 2008
323—c22 2007029598
(cid:1)(cid:1)
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the
American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library
Materials.
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
First printing
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
List of Abbreviations and Acronyms ix
Introduction 1
1
New Rights Advocacy 13
Organizational Fields and the Division of Human Rights
and Development 15
The New Rights Advocacy 19
International System Change and the NGO Sectors 22
Organizations, Their Environments, and Power 26
The Emergence of NGO Cooperation in the 1980s and 1990s 29
Implications of the New Rights Advocacy 32
Tracking the Origins 42
2
Transforming the Human Rights Movement:
Human Rights NGOs Embrace ESC Rights 45
The Emerging Movement for ESC Rights 45
Traditional International Human Rights NGOs and ESC Rights 47
New NGOs and the Global Network for ESC Rights 70
Debating ESC Rights Advocacy 76
Impact of the New Movement for ESC Rights 86
v
vi
Contents
3
NGOs and the Development Industry:
Toward a Rights-Based Approach? 89
Introduction 89
Organizations, Politics, and the Meaning of
Rights-Based Approaches 91
The Development Field and the Call for Rights-Based Approaches 95
Crisis of Development, Promise of Human Rights 99
Development Agencies and the Tentative Embrace
of Rights-Based Development 104
Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals 116
Durability and Limits, Constraints and Resistance 119
4
Alliances and Hybrids 125
Local and Global Cooperation Sets the Stage, 1980s–1990s 127
Converging Agendas, New Organizations, Shared Initiatives,
Methods, and Identities 136
Creating Organizational Hybrids 155
Alliances, Hybrids, and NGO Politics 162
5
Human Rights and Development:
What Is New? Will It Last? 165
What Is New? 168
Are the Sectors Converging? 176
Durability 178
Impact on Outcomes 181
Bibliography 185
Index 207
Acknowledgments
This book has grown out of six years of discussion, research, conver-
sations, consultancies, and classes, and it is not easy to assign credit
(or blame) and acknowledge contributions adequately. Some of the
present chapters were presented and discussed in earlier form, in pan-
els at the 2004 and 2006 International Studies Association meetings
in Montreal and San Diego, and at the 2004 meetings of the Inter-
national Society for Third Sector Research in Toronto. Panelists and
participants helped to shape our ideas, and we particularly thank
Julie Mertus and Ken Conca.
We have had the benefit of discussion and comments on drafts of
some of the book’s chapters in seminars at the University of Pitts-
burgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and at
Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy Manage-
ment, and able research assistance from Srirak Plipat, Catherine
Griebel, and Karolina Lyznik.
Colleagues in research and in the human rights and development
fields have read and commented on portions of the manuscript and
have been critical sounding boards, and we owe special thanks to
Martin Staniland, Bret Thiele, Richard Claude, Curt Goering, Vienna
Colucci, Jael Silliman, and Margaret Zeigler.
Parts of chapter 4 appeared as an article in the European Journal of
International Relationsin 2007, and the discussion of the Millennium
Development Goals in chapter 3 draws on a 2007 article in World De-
velopment.We are grateful to the reviewers of those articles for criti-
cal comments that sharpened and challenged earlier versions. The
authors, of course, are responsible for any errors of fact or judgment.
Finally, we would like to acknowledge our families, who showed
tremendous patience and gave their support to this project. To Wal-
lace and Demaris Nelson, Paola Scommegna, Renata and Ted Nel-
son; and to Martha and Joseph Dorsey and Anise Jordan-Dorsey, our
thanks and love.
vii

Abbreviations and Acronyms
AFL-CIO American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial
Organizations
BIC Bank Information Center (Washington-based NGO)
CAFOD Roman Catholic relief and development agency, England
and Wales
CARE CARE, formerly Cooperative Americans for Relief Everywhere
COHRE Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions
CRS Catholic Relief Services
EDF Environmental Defense Fund (now Environmental Defense)
ERI EarthRights International
ESC economic, social, and cultural (rights)
EURODAD European Network on Debt and Development
HRF Human Rights First (formerly Lawyers Committee for
Human Rights)
HRW Human Rights Watch
ICCPR International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
ICESCR International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights
INGO international nongovernmental organization
IRN International Rivers Network
IRTK International Right to Know (campaign)
IWHC International Women’s Health Coalition
LCHR Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
MOSOP Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Nigeria)
MSF Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders)
MST Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (Brazil)
NBA Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement)
NGO nongovernmental organization
RBA rights-based approach
SDI Slum Dwellers International
SPARC Society for the Promotion of Area Resource Centres
TAC Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa
UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights
ix