The development of a range of global, regional and national human rights frameworks since the end of World War II has led, particularly since the 1990s, to a growth in their use by a range of nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and other campaigning bodies as tools to promote national and global recognition of human rights in policy and in practice. However, the formulation of specific rights often involves struggle and campaigning, and is thus a contested site. The presentation of a right does not ensure that it can be realised. Often attention must be given to wider social and economic policy developments as well as the promotion and facilitation of community empowerment, development, advocacy and campaigning to ensure rights are realisable and extended in line with changing contexts and circumstances. This chapter analyses some of these issues alongside a discussion of contemporary attempts by NGOs and other campaigning organisations to promote the recognition of universal human rights, in areas such as the right to social protection, housing, health and education; and the rights of particular groups, such as women, children, older people, disabled people and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.

Setting the context: from a high tide to a hostile climate?

There was an enormous growth in human rights NGOs in the latter decades of the twentieth century (Posner, 1997; Hegarty, 1999). The field encompasses well-established international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Care International and the Centre for Economic and Social Rights, and it extends to a myriad of regional, national and local NGOs. While domestic NGOs focus on human rights issues within a particular country, their activity often involves strategic linkages with INGOs. Related to this has been the enormous growth of NGOs in the Global South. There has also been a proliferation of interest groups that have a sectoral focus and specialise in pursuing the human rights of particular groups, such as children and women. The work of human rights NGOs spans a range of activities, including information gathering and fact finding which is used for monitoring and reporting work, but also for lobbying governments and inter-governmental organisations (IGOs), and for human rights education/consciousnessraising activities.