Decolonial Human Rights Practice: Tactics, Obstacles, and Futures

Human rights advocacy takes place within a deeply unequal world. As activists seek to protect rights, they struggle against the global economic and political power imbalances that drive violations. Movements for human rights are engaged in an internal struggle as well: against a human rights ecosystem that has long favored Global North organizations at the expense of civil society in the Global South. Decolonial Human Rights Practice: Tactics, Obstacles, and Futures explores the ongoing struggle of human rights organizations to confront and dismantle the coloniality of human rights advocacy.

Through a granular study of everyday advocacy practice which builds upon ongoing debate among advocates and scholars, this book offers a framework for understanding the contemporary domination practices of global north organizations within the human rights space. It then shows how human rights groups are seeking to shift power and transform human rights practice, and examines the successes and limits of their tactics for decolonial resistance and allyship. By drawing together the expertise of activists around the world, this book contributes to efforts to understand power and (in)equity within and between human rights organizations, buttressing ongoing struggles to make human rights advocacy more just, inclusive, and effective.