A longer version of this article was first published in Sur Journal’s 20th issue here, produced by Conectas.
In the last decade, the international human rights framework has become addicted to norm-setting, devoting far too much effort to refining norms, tools and protocols, and not enough to their actual implementation. There have certainly been some important new normative initiatives, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. But now the challenge is that the international institutions protecting human rights are very weak; this will likely remain a challenge for a long time. They are, essentially, the UN’s Human Rights Council, with all its various mechanisms, and in extreme cases the UN Security Council. Both are inter-state bodies, however, where nations trade interests. Neither of these contains a judicial body (such as the European Court of Human Rights or the Inter-American Court), and as long as that remains true, implementation of human rights norms will always be deficient.
The great strength of the international human rights framework is the civil society community of human rights defenders, international and domestic. But international NGOs must take care not to get drawn into this doctrinal and normative environment; instead, they must remain anchored in their fieldwork. For large international human rights NGOs, moreover, partnership with national actors is critical, and this is where the real impact will be felt. The more cohesion there is between the international and local NGOs, the more one can dispel claims that the human rights movement is a Western-dominated agenda, serving Western cultural, political or even economic interests.
