Responsible and effective human rights advocacy by governments or NGOs requires reinforcing consensus, recognizing limits, and remembering that the goal is to enable individuals and societies to determine their own future in dignity and independence. Such a “radically moderate” approach does not exclude vigorous advocacy by lawyers and others seeking to achieve particular social and political goals, nor does it require setting human rights in the concrete of the 1940s or 1970s. Human rights are inherently political, insofar as they require changes in government behavior, but maintaining the distinctions between politics, law, and morality is important. Recognizing these differences does not diminish the importance of any of them, and it reinforces the fact that social change can only be achieved by appealing to law, politics, and morality. The viability of human rights will be ensured only if there is a reasonable degree of consensus among the world’s governments and their people, which will be achieved and deepened only if we do not insist that human rights are a panacea to redress all wrongs. Without sacrificing the goal of universal compliance with universal standards, such an approach will prevent the erosion of one of the twentieth century's greatest legacies: the recognition of rights that we all should enjoy, simply because we are human.