Demands of Justice: The Creation of a Global Human Rights Practice by Ann Marie Clark

Excerpt

This volume examines how human rights advocates have contributed to the spread of global justice since the 1970s, and specifically focuses on the language of human rights and how changes in practices were reflected in the discourse on rights over the past fifty years. Clark explores these changes by focusing on two key cases: The development of Amnesty International’s Urgent Action alerts and Oxfam’s adoption of a basic rights framework. While there is a large literature which examines the origins and reporting of Amnesty International (AI), there has been far less attention to the use of Urgent Action alerts as an example of changes within AI’s policies and language. The case of AI is combined with an examination of Oxfam’s adoption of a “human rights” language demonstrating that global justice practices and discourse have moved beyond political and civil rights to also embrace economic rights, and thus a more complete expression of rights. …