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Amnesty International

Aryeh Neier

in The International Human Rights Movement: A History

This chapter analyzes Amnesty International, the best known and by far the largest human rights organization in the world, which was established in London in 1961. Its creation was a major milestone ... More

This chapter analyzes Amnesty International, the best known and by far the largest human rights organization in the world, which was established in London in 1961. Its creation was a major milestone in the emergence of an enduring human rights movement. From the start it was intended to be a global organization. That is, those who would participate in its efforts would come from all over the world, and those on whose behalf it campaigned would be persons everywhere who suffered abuses of human rights. Today, Amnesty International is probably somewhat less influential, both in the United States and globally, than it was at its high point in the 1970s and the 1980s. Some would argue that this reflects the extension or dilution of its mandate to cover the full range of human rights issues, including economic and social rights.Less

Amnesty International: The NGO That Made Human Rights Important

Wendy H. Wong

in Internal Affairs: How the Structure of NGOs Transforms Human Rights

This chapter focuses on Amnesty International, the classic case of an NGO which has a centralized system for proposal and enforcement powers and a decentralized system for implementation. Amnesty ... More

This chapter focuses on Amnesty International, the classic case of an NGO which has a centralized system for proposal and enforcement powers and a decentralized system for implementation. Amnesty forged a structure and a technique that led to its political salience as an important agenda setter in terms of both ideas and organizational salience during the Cold War. While previous transnational organizations had largely struggled with centralized agenda setting, Amnesty was the first to have a strong central office—the International Secretariat—which controls proposal and enforcement powers of the agenda despite strong national sections throughout Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, this body has gone through some changes, which have solidified the Secretariat's agenda-setting powers.Less

Human Rights INGOs

Sarah S. Stroup

in Borders among Activists: International NGOs in the United States, Britain, and France

This chapter presents how the national origin of human rights international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) acts as a more specific source of constraint and opportunity. It also argues that the ... More

This chapter presents how the national origin of human rights international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) acts as a more specific source of constraint and opportunity. It also argues that the international human rights sector is different in at least four ways from that of humanitarian relief. First, the sector is dominated globally by Amnesty International, whose combined international income is almost eight times larger than that of the next largest INGO, Human Rights Watch. Second, human rights INGOs are fewer in number and smaller in size than in the humanitarian sector. Third, many human rights nongovernment organization worldwide have been created and sustained by contributions from American grant-making foundations. Lastly, human rights INGOs are in general much more involved in advocacy and political action than their humanitarian counterparts.Less

Cultural Work in Amnesty International

in Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement among Grassroots Activists

Within the context provided by the human rights tradition and the structure of Amnesty International, local human rights activists in the United States and other countries pursue the cause of ... More

Within the context provided by the human rights tradition and the structure of Amnesty International, local human rights activists in the United States and other countries pursue the cause of individual liberty and dignity. In the course of this work, activists develop narratives, practices, and their own appropriations of the human rights tradition. They deal with the ambiguities in that tradition. They make decisions about what nature of constraints to impose on their discourse. They think about the balance of concern for private, political, and economic rights, which leads to the question of the extent to which various issues should be linked. They grapple with issues about relativism and how to ground human rights. This chapter focuses on this local cultural work with the story of one activist, a story that manifests recurring patterns in the personal narratives of Amnesty members. Then it examines, as cultural practices, the activities Amnesty members engage in and the events they organize. Finally, it considers the various kinds of discourse engaged in by local activists and the explanations they give for the constraints they adopt.Less

The Human Rights Tradition and Amnesty International

in Cultural Dilemmas of Progressive Politics: Styles of Engagement among Grassroots Activists

This chapter reviews the cultural traditions on which contemporary human rights work relies, with a special focus on three defining documents. Two of these—the French Declaration of the Rights of Man ... More

This chapter reviews the cultural traditions on which contemporary human rights work relies, with a special focus on three defining documents. Two of these—the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and the U.S. Bill of Rights—date from the age of democratic revolutions. These documents, along with thinkers such as Locke and Voltaire, helped construct the tradition of human rights. The third document is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the United Nations shortly after World War II. The UDHR has become the sacred text of the contemporary human rights movement. The discussion of these documents is intended as a sketch of the most important elements of the historical deposit contemporary human rights work draws upon, not an intellectual history of this tradition. The second half of the chapter takes a quick look at the organizational structure and history of Amnesty International and then examines Amnesty's appropriation of the human rights tradition, focusing on the rules it has adopted to govern its work and how it defines its organizational “mandate.”Less

“This Unhappy Affair”: Investigating Torture in Aden

Brian Drohan

in Brutality in an Age of Human Rights: Activism and Counterinsurgency at the End of the British Empire

Chapter four explains how allegations that British forces used torture during interrogations led to colonial officials’ efforts to evade scrutiny, deny that abuses had occurred, and impugn the ... More

Chapter four explains how allegations that British forces used torture during interrogations led to colonial officials’ efforts to evade scrutiny, deny that abuses had occurred, and impugn the character of those making accusations. In 1966, Amnesty International advocated for a government investigation of these torture allegations. When ministers proved uninterested in investigating the allegations, Amnesty dispatched an investigator of its own and publicized his findings. In response to potential public embarrassment, the Foreign Secretary ordered a limited inquiry that produced a tactful semi-admission that abuses had occurred and recommended several reforms. Officials in Aden appeared to cooperate by implementing the reforms but simultaneously manipulated oversight mechanisms to ensure that the interrogation system remained shielded from scrutiny. Protected by the High Commissioner and other senior officials in Aden, interrogators resumed the use of torture.Less

“How to Free Your Prisoner”: The Personal and the Political of International Prisoner Support

Padraic Kenney

in Dance in Chains: Imprisonment in the Modern World

Though political prisoners are almost always incarcerated for national causes, they became the focus of international support in the twentieth century. The earliest attention was from diaspora ... More

Though political prisoners are almost always incarcerated for national causes, they became the focus of international support in the twentieth century. The earliest attention was from diaspora communities of supporters, for example, among the Irish or among socialists. The International Committee of the Red Cross began with a focus on prisoners of war, expanding to political prisoners after World War I. The New York–based International Committee for Political Prisoners pioneered a nonpartisan approach to political prisoners. Like Amnesty International forty years later, it was an advocate for those who did not engage in violence. New kinds of prisoner assistance in the late twentieth century proved to be building blocks of post-transition civil society.Less

Globalized Childhood as a Mechanism of Diffusion

Robyn Linde

in The Globalization of Childhood: The International Diffusion of Norms and Law against the Child Death Penalty

Chapter 5 discusses the role of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the creation and diffusion of the globalized child, as Western norms about children regarding age, development, ... More

Chapter 5 discusses the role of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in the creation and diffusion of the globalized child, as Western norms about children regarding age, development, maturity, and culpability came to shape the model of childhood that would be applied to all children in all states, economies, and cultures in the postwar era. The chapter then discusses the campaign by Amnesty International and its American chapter (AIUSA) against the death penalty for juvenile offenders (the child death penalty). AIUSA’s moral authority and innovative use of international law allowed it to successfully agitate for change. The 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is contextualized within these two case studies, which consider how diverse states and intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations helped to enshrine the global model of childhood into law. Finally, the role of late period agency in efforts to abolish the child death penalty is discussed.Less

Rights on the Other Side of the Cold War Divide

Aryeh Neier

in The International Human Rights Movement: A History

This chapter illustrates that many Americans took part in struggles for rights during the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. Though it was a fertile period for those promoting rights within ... More

This chapter illustrates that many Americans took part in struggles for rights during the period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. Though it was a fertile period for those promoting rights within the United States, few Americans were concerned in those years with efforts to secure rights in other parts of the world. The emergence of a rights movement in the Soviet Union in the 1960s was little noted, and relatively few in the United States joined Amnesty International, which developed far more rapidly in Europe. Americans concerned about rights in that era could be mobilized to deal with American violations of rights, but not with rights abuses by other governments. Inattention to such matters by those deeply engaged in domestic rights struggles was, in a way, a counterpart to the disdain for international law frequently expressed by partisans of American exceptionalism.Less

“Hunger War”: Humanitarian Rights and the Radfan Campaign

Brian Drohan

in Brutality in an Age of Human Rights: Activism and Counterinsurgency at the End of the British Empire

Chapter three examines the 1964 Radfan campaign. During the campaign, security forces purposefully targeted civilian livelihoods by driving the population from their homes, burning food stores, ... More

Chapter three examines the 1964 Radfan campaign. During the campaign, security forces purposefully targeted civilian livelihoods by driving the population from their homes, burning food stores, destroying crops, and killing livestock. These actions created a humanitarian crisis as thousands of refugees fled the violence. With help from a new NGO led by Peter Benenson called Amnesty International, representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) sought permission to provide humanitarian aid in the Radfan, but British officials tried to prevent the ICRC from accessing the region. When ICRC access proved impossible to prevent, British authorities reacted by taking advantage of it by promoting the propaganda value of ICRC prison inspections that allowed British officials to claim that they treated detainees humanely.Less

Human Rights as Domination

Nicola Perugini and Neve Gordon

in The Human Right to Dominate

This introductory chapter problematizes the linear narrative of global redemption through human rights by analyzing the relationship between human rights and domination. Defining domination as a ... More

This introductory chapter problematizes the linear narrative of global redemption through human rights by analyzing the relationship between human rights and domination. Defining domination as a relationship of subjugation characterized by the use of force and coercion, the authors show how actors with different agendas, ideals, and beliefs launch similar types of campaigns articulated through the language of human rights in order to advance opposed political objectives. The chapter argues that precisely because human rights have no essential core, they can be appropriated in various ways and can potentially acquire new political meanings, which may invert already existing ones. Within the current context of convergences, mirroring, and inversions, the instrumentalist conception of human rights—according to which conservatives or militaries deploy human rights merely as a pretext for attaining other political objectives—is revealed to be both empirically and theoretically flawed.Less

Women and Human Rights

DAVID BOUCHER

in The Limits of Ethics in International Relations: Natural Law, Natural Rights, and Human Rights in Transition

This chapter discusses the significance of the 2008 Amnesty International Report on Human Rights for human and women's rights issues. The report recognized the lack of global leadership to eradicate ... More

This chapter discusses the significance of the 2008 Amnesty International Report on Human Rights for human and women's rights issues. The report recognized the lack of global leadership to eradicate gender violence and maintained that women in almost all regions of the world suffer from high degrees of sexual violence. Prior to the release of this report, gender-specific issues had already been addressed at the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, leading to the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women.Less

Aden: Results and reactions

Samantha Newbery

in Interrogation, intelligence and security: Controversial British Techniques

This chapter completes the book’s coverage of the Aden case by charting the results and reactions that followed the use of the ‘five techniques’ there. It will be shown that not only was ... More

This chapter completes the book’s coverage of the Aden case by charting the results and reactions that followed the use of the ‘five techniques’ there. It will be shown that not only was interrogation successful in producing intelligence, but that this intelligence was used to make improvements to the security situation in Aden. It will also be shown that interrogation was a valuable source of intelligence in relation to other sources. Investigations into allegations of brutality conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross and Amnesty International are examined, as is the British Government’s response to these investigations, which took the form of the Bowen Inquiry into procedures for the arrest, interrogation and detention of suspects in Aden. These investigations led to increased concern for the welfare of prisoners amongst members of the governments of Aden and the UK.Less

Conscience Denied: Amnesty International and the Antirevolution of the 1960s

Randall Williams

in The Divided World: Human Rights and Its Violence

This chapter provides an analysis of Amnesty International’s 1964 disqualification of South African Nelson Mandela as prisoner of conscience. Despite having initially adopted Mandela as a victim of ... More

This chapter provides an analysis of Amnesty International’s 1964 disqualification of South African Nelson Mandela as prisoner of conscience. Despite having initially adopted Mandela as a victim of human rights abuse, the emerging international NGO hastily voted to drop the antiapartheid activist following his trial statement. In his statement, Mandela defended the African National Congress’s use of organized political violence as a necessary and ethical response in the struggle against the racist South African state. Neither the apartheid state nor the international human rights organization accepted Mandela’s argument as he was sentenced to life imprisonment and removed from Amnesty’s worldwide list of prisoners of conscience. Mandela’s disqualification marks the point at which the postwar discourse of human rights becomes a default ally of state violence.Less

Repertoires, Meet Regimes

Charles Tilly

in Regimes and Repertoires

This chapter identifies systematic variations in repertoires across different sorts of regime. It begins by describing regime by regime, locating regimes within the space, and then maps out what ... More

This chapter identifies systematic variations in repertoires across different sorts of regime. It begins by describing regime by regime, locating regimes within the space, and then maps out what varieties of contention predominate in different kinds of regime. Prevailing forms of public, collective claim-making—contentious repertoires—vary significantly from one location to another within regime space. All effective rulers carry on some combination of the four strategies presented. Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), and Freedom House (FH) provide enough detail to tell the difference among regimes in their responses to contentious repertoires. Vignettes of contention and its control in the regimes of this chapter indicate that locations of regimes with respect to capacity and democracy significantly affect the repertoires of contention that prevail in those regimes. It ends with an argument that repertoires meet regimes in collaboration and conflict.Less

Latin America, Israel, and the Last Campaign

Raymond A. Schroth and S. J.

in Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress

Drinan's expedition to Argentina was in the tradition of his 1969 flight with an investigating committee to Vietnam—a team of concerned human rights activists, this time representing Amnesty ... More

Drinan's expedition to Argentina was in the tradition of his 1969 flight with an investigating committee to Vietnam—a team of concerned human rights activists, this time representing Amnesty International, who wanted to talk to presidents and prisoners, visit scenes of alleged crimes, and question the victims as well as those responsible. They wished to alert the larger world to a local crime that demanded global attention. It was also a foreshadowing of a major direction his life and career were about to take. What he learned in Argentina he would reinforce the next year in El Salvador, and the following year in South Africa and Southeast Asia again, and finally a return to El Salvador and other countries in Central America during what would become his last year in office. But the combined impact of all these experiences would transform him into one of America's leading apostles for human rights, both in and out of office.Less

Roy Mason, the BBC and the ‘Second Battle of Culloden’

Robert J. Savage

in The BBC's Irish troubles: Television, conflict and Northern Ireland

This chapter considers BBC reporting on the work of the security services in Northern Ireland between 1976 and the fall of the Labour Government in 1979. It addresses the tenure of Northern Ireland ... More

This chapter considers BBC reporting on the work of the security services in Northern Ireland between 1976 and the fall of the Labour Government in 1979. It addresses the tenure of Northern Ireland Secretary of State Roy Mason and considers his aggressive tactic in trying to defeat the IRA. Particular attention is paid to programmes that criticised British security policy, especially the interrogation techniques which were widely condemned as cruel and degrading. The role of television in undermining British policy is considered.Less