Public support for human rights is not easy to achieve and maintain. After all, human rights exist to protect individuals not only from the tyranny of states, but equally from the popular prejudices and discriminatory attitudes that threaten the rights of marginalized and unpopular social groups. Sometimes human rights exist to protect individuals who we might consider to be legitimately unpopular, such as those involved in terrorism.
Yet action to build public support—or at very least public respect—for human rights is critical. As Rachel Krys and Kevin Nix have both noted, the way we frame certain human rights can dramatically change public opinion of those rights. Effective defence of human rights is at least as much about battles in the court of public opinion as it is those in courts of law. Without it, the opponents of human rights are free to shape the public narrative about human rights. This neglect can have dire consequences, because public opinion is capable of nurturing or destroying laws and institutions.
The human rights brand is under attack globally. In Africa, leaders accused of war crimes and the popular press—which they often own—cast themselves as the ultimate victims of the International Criminal Court, itself portrayed as a Western imperialist venture. In Europe, governments including the UK and Russia accuse the European Court of Human Rights of overreaching and undermining national sovereignty, threatening to leave the regional human rights system. In Brazil, as in Britain and elsewhere, human rights are often thought to benefit criminals over the victims of crime.
