Representation of Human Rights Violations
by Human Rights NGOs*
Changrok Soh ․ Jooyea Lee 󰠐 Korea University
1)
Ⅰ.
Ⅱ.
Ⅲ.
Ⅳ.
Ⅴ.
Reflections on the Genealogy of Human Rights Reporting
Three Principal Tactics Utilized by Human Rights NGOs
Decontextualization in Human Rights Reporting
Analysis of Human Rights Watch Reports
Conclusion
Keywords: Human Rights, Activism, NGO, Human Rights Reporting,
Monitoring, Advocacy
󰠛 ABSTRACT 󰠛
As the notion of human rights spreads around the globe, various claims are
made using the language of human rights. Many venues utilize the notion as they
publicize stories of human rights violations. In such circumstances, the modes in
which the idea of human rights is constructed become important. Human rights NGO
reports are especially crucial, because they shape government policy, media and public
opinions. This article argues that human rights reports, in order to achieve their goals
of monitoring and advocacy, human rights NGOs faithfully utilize a few principal
tactics. After identifying those tactics, it was examined how such tactics have lead
to decontextualization, through which the problematic nature of reporting techniques
was revealed. The achievements of international human rights activism have been
noted, as there are many. However, dilemmas of the current mode of representing
human rights violations were explored more thoroughly in an attempt, hopefully,
to take one step forward in the field of human rights activism.
* This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by
the Korean Government (NRF-2010-330-B00146).
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I. Reflections on the Genealogy of
Human Rights Reporting
Criticisms abound on our lack of concern for the sufferings of others,
the phenomenon of which is conveniently summarized as a culture of
apathy. Nonetheless, human rights norms and standards have been
aggressively advocated globally since the 1990s. As a result, our generation
is now called ‘the Age of Human Rights,’1) clearly indicating society’s
interests in human rights.
How do people learn about human rights issues, and through which
venues? The venues are diverse as they can include: fact-finding field
mission handbooks such as Amnesty International Handbook, human
rights commissions, tribunals, testimonies, media, stories and various
others.2) These venues ‘interpenetrate’ each other, united within the
paradigm of human rights. In addition, each venue tends to attract a
different readership. It will be interesting to find out what types of tactics
are employed by different venues to introduce people to human rights
issues.
The particular venue this article focuses on will be NGO reports,
specifically on the way NGOs produce human rights reports. Due to
the nature of human rights NGOs, which is that they are internally diverse,
it must be noted that what is examined in this article represents a few
dominant and general characteristics of NGO reports. Therefore, the
results of this analysis may not apply to all sub-groups of human rights
NGOs. That said, what will be explored here is the methodology and
principles adopted by human rights NGOs as measures to report on
human rights issues. We will also reflect on the possible implications
for monitoring and advocacy of human rights. Only textual reports of
1) Upendra Baxi, “Human Rights: Suffering between Movements and Markets,” in Robin and
Shirin Rai (eds.), Global Social Movements (London: Athlone Press, 2000), p. 34.
2) Kay Schaffer and Smith Sidonie, Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), pp. 35-51.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
57
major human rights NGOs are subject to analysis, and various modes
recently utilized for telling human rights stories — such as films, audiovisual material, etc. — are outside the purview of this research.
A careful inquiry into the origin of human rights reporting however,
involves the task of tracing the history of human rights discourse. One
of the historical moments that incited the human rights concept could
be during The French Revolution. The Revolution’s legacy, Declaration
of the Rights of Man and Citizen, was richly imbued with Enlightenment
principles, which emphasized the necessity for constitutional guarantees
of individual liberties and for all human affairs to be guided by reason.
Neither the word France nor French appeared in the articles of the declaration — only in the preamble. At least textually, it could be interpreted
that the creators aspired to the universal application of Enlightenment
principles of the Revolution all over the world, not just in France.3)
When it comes to protecting the universal rights of all human beings,
current human rights regimes inherited the ideals of the French Revolution
and its attempt to universalize its dedication to law and reason. The
advent of the Age of Human Rights was a prolonged process, not an
overnight event as it passed through various historical moments on the
way: World War II, the Holocaust and the collapse of the Cold War.
Human rights discourse gradually established its normativity through
numerous human rights treaties, declarations, and Conventions.4) Ever
since the paradigm shifted towards human rights from the Cold War
realpolitik, numerous international human rights documents were ratified,
opening up the possibility for human rights norms to infiltrate into national
politics.
In their dedication to human rights monitoring and to advocacy,
many organizations utilized narratives to publicize claims on human
3) Lynn Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History (Boston:
Bedford Books of St. Martin’s, 1996), pp. 71-77.
4) Kay Schaffer and Smith Sidonie, Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of Recognition
(New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), p. 15.
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rights abuses. When such narratives are publicized, they become a motif
with which advocates hope to generate social change. Human rights
advocates usually expect that their narratives will result in a desirable
set of actions: acknowledgement of human suffering → mobilization of
the public into shock and anger → actions that can put an end the suffering.5)
The faith in the Enlightenment principle — that things will change if
only people knew — has been the driving force for human rights advocacy.
However, had this been true — that things will in fact change if only
people knew — human suffering should have ended by now during this
Age of Human Rights, in which the stories of human sufferings abound.
It is time for human rights activists to question the linear logic that
inordinately trusts the power of knowledge, to critically contemplate
the current mode of representing human rights violations.
Human rights discourses heavily rely on “the international commitment to narratability.”6) Without narratability, stories cannot be published,
and they lose any potential they may have for advocacy. This signifies
that when a story is published, it is officially retold, whereas when a
story remains unpublished, it is officially untold. As Schaffer and Smith
stated, the “stories enlisted within and attached to a human rights framework
are particular kinds of stories.”7) They are narratable stories. Adhering
to imagined narratability essentially constructs certain ideas about human
rights violations, to define what human rights violations should be, so
that they can be universally recounted.
Human rights NGOs, with a distinct set of goals and principles,
share a set of motifs when it comes to their principle of reporting and
telling stories. One of the most valuable principles is perhaps the principle
of objectivity (albeit what the NGOs consider “objective” might be worth
exploring as well). They also have the tendency to decontextualize and
5) Schaffer and Sidonie (2004), pp. 3 and 28.
6) Narratability is the basic standard stories and reports must meet, in order for the stories
to be properly understood and communicated.
7) Schaffer and Sidonie (2004), p. 4.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
59
to destroy subjectivity in their reports. Decontextualization is inherent
in any type of storytelling and reporting. Nevertheless, examining human
rights NGOs’ particular mode of decontextualization is a part of an
endless effort, not only to devise better ways of representing human
rights violations, but to incur positive changes.
Under the Carter administration from 1977 to 1981, the United States
Congress came up with the idea of an annual human rights report8) that
attempted to incorporate human rights language into foreign policy. Even
though it was one of the early governmental attempts to globally monitor
the quality of human rights after the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, the credibility and thus the quality of the reports published by
the Department of State was uneven as Cold War politics were still
dominating the direction of foreign policy.
Many NGOs, however, criticized the Carter reports’ projected “global”9)
aspect, not only because the U.S. government mostly reported human
rights violations outside of the United States, but also because the government remained silent toward violations committed by its allies. This
is why Martin Ennals questioned the quality of government-produced
human rights reports. He advocated for the necessity of an internationally
accepted methodology of human rights reports.10) The way human rights
NGOs such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch produce
their reports seems to follow Ennals’ idea of an “internationally accepted
methodology.”
Let us now examine the trend prevalent in the human rights reports
by examining the characteristics of human rights NGOs and its effects
on their reports. The core of human rights NGOs’ existence lies in,
inter alia, the following: to monitor the implementation of international
8) International Council on Human Rights Policy, Journalism, Media and the Challenges
of Human Rights Reporting (Switzerland: International Council on Human Rights Policy,
2002), p. 24.
9) International Council on Human Rights Policy (2002), p. 24.
10) Martin Ennals, “Human Rights Reporting,” Index on Censorship, Vol. 11, No. 6 (1982),
p. 6.
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human rights norms; to report violations when they do occur; and finally,
to take punitive and/or preventative courses of action regarding the putative
violations. One of many crucial tasks human rights NGOs perform is
to produce human rights reports. As Cohen11) states, human rights reporting
can be ‘a means to an end’ with its customary procedure of collecting
information, fact checking and the standardization of gathered information.
They are all “part of a wider strategy to prevent violations and implement
universal standards.”
II. Three Principal Tactics Utilized
by Human Rights NGOs
In this section, we examine three elements that human rights NGOs
frequently utilize in their attempt to produce reports that are aimed at
monitoring and advocacy.
1. Professional Language of Law
Human rights reports must exhibit a degree of professionalism to
advocate international human rights norms and to monitor implementation
of such norms. Through their reports, human rights NGOs establish the
universality of human rights norms, whose legitimacy manifests itself
through the “objective language of law.”12) On its face, appealing to
the international rule of law in order to rectify human wrongs is, by
11) Stanley Cohen, “Government Responses to Human Rights Reports: Claims, Denials, and
Counter Claims,” Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 3 (1996), p. 517.
12) Kirsten Hastrup, “Violence, Suffering and Human Rights: Anthropological Reflections,”
Anthropological Theory, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2003), p. 318.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
61
all means, not a horrendous idea. After all, it was through the legal
ratification of the Genocide Convention that Raphael Lemkin aspired
to prevent the recurrence of the Holocaust. Lemkin who professed “Only
man has law. Law must be built. [․ ․ ․] You must build the law!”13) perceived
that villains such as Hitler or Stalin would not desist from committing
atrocities simply because of a piece of legislation. However, what Lemkin
did believe was that “if the law was in place it would have an effect
— sooner or later.”14) This firm belief in the power of law securely
insinuated itself into the current human rights discourse, albeit not without
a tremendous struggle on Lemkin’s part. For that reason, human rights
organizations duly endorse human rights legal norms when publicizing
violations of rights.
Publicizing human rights violations generally involves the task of
rendering complex human atrocities into tangible legal language. Here,
it is worth examining Christopher Browning’s insight that the Holocaust
was not a legal or philosophical concept but “a set of events that actually
occurred” that cannot possibly be translated into the tangibility of language.15)
Browning’s observation identified the main problem in representing the
Holocaust — to represent what could not be represented.
In the Age of Human Rights nonetheless, it is necessary to represent
the unrepresentable, and human sufferings must be brought to light. Human
rights communities will agree that it is better that human rights activists
know about human atrocities and suffering instead of leaving them buried
and remaining silent.
Accepting these limitations allows us to focus on the consequences
of faithfully subscribing to legal language when representing human
rights violations. Human rights advocates are firm believers in the
13) Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York:
Harper Perennial, 2003), p. 55.
14) Abraham Micheal Rosenthal, cited in Power (2003), p. 55.
15) Richard Wilson, “Representing human rights violations: social contexts and subjectivities,”
in Richard Wilson (ed.), Human rights, culture and context: anthropological perspectives
(London: Pluto Press, 1996), p. 156.
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universality of human rights, consequently believing in the legitimacy
of universalizing human rights concepts and practices.
By asserting the legality and universality of human rights norms,
human rights NGOs pledge that the “global sense of justice rests upon
an all-inclusive sense of humanity”16) where differences between people
and cultures tend to be undermined for the sake of respecting the equal
value of human beings. Such tendency often results in what some experts
call “dehistoricization”.17)
Wilson states that since rights are experienced, they are pragmatic
values rather than ‘universal abstractions.’18) However, human rights
discourse advocates a legal rationality above history and experience,
displacing values and norms as a result. Considering human rights organizations’ commitment to ethical objectives, the methods employed by the
NGOs are devoid of ethics and therefore, “ironically self-defeating.”19)
The ultimate purpose of human rights reporting, the promotion of
action and changes, demands the advocates to subscribe to the international
human rights legal norm, where the universal rights of every human
being is asserted. Faithful subscription to legalism that provides a
transnational outlet for human rights, however, also dehistoricizes and
decontextualizes complex situations regarding human rights violations,
the blessing as well as the curse of Raphael Lemkin’s legacy.
2. The Principle of Objectivity
The credibility of human rights reports increases when the report
16) Hastrup (2003), p. 320.
17) Dehistoricization is another process similar to decontextualization, where events and/or
personalities are understood without the consideration of history that affected them. In
this case, Wilson refers to universalisation of diverse histories and cultures as dehistoricization.
18) Wilson (1996), p. 155.
19) Wilson (1996), p. 155.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
63
in question appears objective and neutral. To that end, researchers employ
various tactics, one such technique being the extensive use of footnotes.
Anthony Grafton, the author of The Footnote: A Curious History, construes
that footnotes have the power to transform the “work of history in question”
into “the creation of a professional,” where the use of footnotes implies
a degree of confidence about the writing, signifying “critical rationality,”
— thus objectivity.20)
While addressing the inadequacy of governments’ ability to produce
unbiased reports on their own human rights records, Ennals21) found
it crucial to establish ‘objective internationally accepted methodology
and standards’ to which all human rights reporting could subscribe.22)
Ennals’ predominant stance towards the government reporting was cynical,
asserting that NGOs, academics, and activists must initiate the process
of reporting. He endorsed the Chronicle of Current Events, an underground
periodical that reported on the status of human rights from within the
former Soviet Union. Ennals especially valued the paper’s objective style
of simply reporting facts with no emotive elements.23)
Currently, human rights reports published by major NGOs such as
the Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch strongly reflect
the styles of the Chronicle of Current Events to preserve objectivity.
The principle of objectivity is closely linked to NGOs’ assertion of
authority, which can increase the credibility and strength of their advocacy.
Furthermore, the aforementioned value of legalism directly correlates
with the principle of objectivity. So, what are the specific features of
the human reports that subscribe to this doctrine of neutrality, besides
20) Ron Dudai, “Advocacy with Footnotes: The Human Rights Report as a Literary Genre,”
Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2006), p. 784.
21) Ennals (1982), p. 6.
22) Ennals (1982), p. 6.
23) Ennals (1982), p. 4. Everything Shii Knows, “Chronicle of Current Events,” http://shii.org/
knows/Chronicle_of_Current_Events (Accessed July 29, 2009); Peter Reddaway, Uncensored
Russia: The Human Rights Movement in the Soviet Union (London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd.,
1972), pp. 15-40.
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the use of footnotes observed by Dudai?
In order to assert the veracity of the information provided within
reports, human rights reporting utilizes numerous short case profiles
that include fairly formulaic information — i.e. date, name, the category
of victim, etc. These details are intended to appear realistic, rational,
and unequivocal as the reports aspire to reach the status where “the
fact in the main text of human rights simply speaks for themselves.”24)
However, what is important to note is that the strict subscription
to the doctrine of objectivity does not necessarily result in the expose
of truth. Through the principle of objectivity, human rights organizations
present a unified version of truth to the international community, which
disregards the heterogeneous nature of truth. Considering the purpose
of human rights reporting — to stop the present violence, to prevent
the recurrence of violence, and to seek justice for past injustices — the
priority of the rights researcher lies in identifying the type of truths
that will motivate both national and international communities into action.
This tactic can be a very effective mode of advocacy, however, it can
be a problem if the reports profess that they represent the whole and
ultimate truth of the matter.
Wilson’s illustration of Guatemalan local elite member’s murder25)
revealed that the death of a local elite member precipitated multiple
theories, each representing various social contexts. The dominant narrative
published in the local newspaper presented only a fraction of the
multi-faceted narratives that existed among the community residents.
The moral here is that a human rights researcher may tend to settle
on a single conclusion, rather than seeking to “contextualise an event.”
When a rights researcher fails to acknowledge the existence of multiple
narratives, s/he is bound to silence multiple narratives. If circumstances
regarding the production and selection of certain narratives are affected
24) Wilson (1996), p. 143.
25) Wilson (1996), pp. 135-138.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
65
by a pre-existing unequal power structure that exists within a particular
society, the rights researcher, in her/his failure to acknowledge such
power imbalances, ends up reproducing the unequal power structure
in the selected and unified narrative.
Situations that require the attention of human rights organizations
are normally those of complex natures — sometimes even requiring
judgment beyond neutrality. They are normally not value-free situations,
therefore cannot be filtered through methods of objectivity frequently
utilized by NGOs. Methodologies that do not allow room for contesting
their reports can sacrifice layers of truth existing beyond and behind
them.
As Irene Khan elucidates, human rights are about values. They are
not simply about laws and systems.26) They are also about voices, not
only texts. However, through objective subscriptions to the language
of law, human rights discourse inadvertently silences some voices.
The fact that perceived objectivity — i.e. the truth status — of reports
is more or less directly linked to the trustworthiness of human rights
organizations, can be one of the reasons why organizations like Amnesty
International and the Human Rights Watch self-consciously focus on
producing reports that will authenticate their legitimacy.27) One must
remember however, the principle of objectivity itself is not an absolute
value, but a highly debatable concept.
3. Deconstruction of Subjectivity
The types of violations subject to investigation by human rights
researchers are generally those of an extreme nature. Valentine Daniel
assumes the impossibility of sharing pain in that “[t]error hyper-
26) Dudai (2006), p. 790.
27) Wilson (1996), p. 151.
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individuates the victim,”28) demonstrating the difficulty of sharing an
experience of terror through text, or any other medium. An extreme
degree of violence or terror indiscriminately obliterates any possible
cultural distinctions. Michael Jackson29) believes that violence can
ultimately objectify the subjectivity of a victim “against his or her will.”
Therefore, whether a person is objectified to compassion or to violence
might not matter. What’s worth contemplating is the possible results
of such objectification of a subject. Following Daniel’s logic of the
very subjective nature of terror, what’s worth contemplating is the result
of objectifying a subject and universally communicating what is ultimately
incommunicable.
The nature of naming anything is to limit, for the sake of identification
or recognition. Any experiences, once named, in this case through language
and textual reports, are bound to contain a range of experiences different
from what the actual experiences might have been. This is how human
rights violations articulated via language “socialize[s] and objectifie[s]
what are at bottom individual and unique experiences.”30) According
to the specific situation presumed in any human rights reports, violence
weakens any individuals involved, thus depriving the already objectified
victim of the opportunity to actively engage in a narrative where the
victim is able “to speak, to narrate or to bear witness.”31)
Human rights reports not only destroy the subjectivity of the victims,
but also that of the author due to “[a]uthor evacuated texts.”32) Almost
all human rights reports are without the publicized names of author.
Though the policy of anonymity is intended partially to protect field
researchers, Wilson acknowledges it is a device that “creates an aura
28) Hastrup (2003), p. 312.
29) Michael Jackson, The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression and Intersubjectivity
(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002), p. 45.
30) Jackson (2002), p. 23.
31) Hastrup (2003), p. 313.
32) Wilson (1996), p. 150.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
67
of objectivity and neutrality by wiping the stain of subjectivity off the
surface of the text.” Wilson himself is acutely aware of the power of
the author’s subjectivity in that it has the power to change the narrative
itself. Surely, in the context of human rights violations, all field researchers
contribute to the narrative. It is indeed conceivable that rights researchers
do not think of themselves as such. Whatever the circumstances, they
all disappear in their reports. Although it is the requirement by human
rights NGOs, it seems fair to assume a certain level of moral conviction
for those who commit themselves to documenting human rights violations.
However, they seem to disappear in the products of their faithful
documenting.
What is also absent in human rights reports is the “interpreting gaze
of the bystander.”33) Wilson considers a severe lack of eyewitness reports
as proof of such a phenomenon, but this view is questionable. The lack
of eyewitness reports might be caused by a number of reasons, not
necessarily because of the human rights NGOs’ belief in the value of
value-free objectivity. Eyewitnesses may fear for their safety. The number
of eyewitness accounts per se might not matter as much as the way
the accounts are utilized.
Although it could be argued that certain level of de-subjectification
is inevitable in any type of representation, the way human rights reports
objectify their subjects can be problematic. Perhaps the fact that Amnesty
International focuses on reporting individual cases is a matter of
compensation for the lost subjectivity or individuality. However, critics
continue to comment on the effectiveness of such tactics in actually
changing the structure that produces violence.
33) Wilson (1996), p. 151.
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III. Decontextualization in Human Rights Reporting
The adoption of the aforementioned factors — the use of professional
language of law for advocacy, the principle of objectivity and desubjectification — have led to decontextualization in human rights
reporting. The discourse obsesses itself with “technocratic consciousness”
vernacu- larizing ethical matters through the rational perspectives that
are quintessentially “scientific, technological and legal.”34) Human rights
discourse is at odds with Fred Inglis’ idea that:
Meanings exist in a force field of other meanings. You could not talk
about the meaning of an action without connecting it to a narrative (including
other actions) if you want to interpret its meanings.35)
Human rights reports, through their “radical acts of exclusion,” deny
the existence of other meanings. One can wonder whether it is the very
attempt to universalize the discourse of human rights that makes
decontextualization in human rights reporting inevitable. During her field
research in Tanzania of Burundian Hutu refugees, Malkki36) detected
the dehistoricizing nature of universalism. Contemporary humanitarianism
through Tanzania’s refugee policy organized refugees into a single
category. Refugees understood the idea of “refugeeness” not only as
a status of legal technicality, but also as “a matter of becoming” with
a degree of historicity. The diverse definitions of the term refugees,
as the perception of refugeeness imagined by refugees themselves differed
from those of international workers, compromise the solidarity of the
term defined in the international refugee law.
Could it be that the dilemma lies in the very attempt to reach an
34) Wilson (1996), p. 155.
35) Wilson (1996), p. 145.
36) Lisa Malkki, “Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization,”
Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1996), pp. 378 and 382.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
69
agreement on matters and concepts that cannot be reduced to a single
consensus? In the concept of refugees, the universal definition definitely
incurs certain benefits, but at the same time strips them of their multilayered personas, turning them into “pure victims in general”: “universal
man, universal woman, universal child, and taken together, universal
family.”37)
The major consequences of such decontextualization and dehistoricization in human rights reporting are depoliticization and silencing of
the victims. Depoliticization occurs when the strict adherence to the
legal technicalities becomes the sole basis of understanding violations
disregarding the structural process of how violence occurs, e.g. whether
it is through class or ethnic power relations. As it was made clear through
Wilson’s explanation of a murder case in Guatemala, when one narrative
is chosen because of the ease of applying legal technicalities, other
narratives that reflect structural process are omitted from the dominant
discourse. This means that the diversities of various political and historical
circumstances are carved out.
Without considering the process — i.e. the historicity — of violations
in question, details of human rights violations “remain incomprehensible
except as irrational outbursts devoid of meaning”38) especially for those
who subscribe to the principles of liberal democracy and rationality that
have been created by the North. The irrationalities as they are perceived
through narrow perspectives of rationality are destined to result in
decontextualization, as actual victims are not offered the chance to narrate
their stories. The perceived irrationalities of the victims, in human rights
reporting, are rendered as something specific to the locus of violation,
which despite being universal, are prevalent and common in the region.
In contrast to the universal individual — the bearer of a natural set
of rights — a “social persons”39) cannot be separated from his or her
37) Malkki (1996), p. 378.
38) Wilson (1996), p. 148.
39) Social person: as opposed to a universal individual, a social person is an individual with
70 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
historical context. An anthropologist like Wilson himself can be interested
in social persons as agents of complex social processes, in which their
rights are more experiential than natural. In human rights reports, the
likelihood of silencing social persons is far lower than that of silencing
universal individuals.
When Malkki40) addresses the issue of depoliticization and silencing
in conjunction with refugees within contemporary humanitarianism discourse, the question of voice arises in the representation of human rights
violations. It is problematic that silencing through the spread of a “universal
and ahistorical humanity” manifests itself as progressive politics. Malkki
saw this dehistoricization as “a project of depoliticization” where “political
activism and refugee status were mutually exclusive,” when in fact, they
are closely related to each other. Removal of socio-historical context
prevalent in NGO textual reports creates “the process whereby life becomes
text becomes genre,”41) which is perhaps one of many processes of
how human rights reports became a literary genre.42)
IV. Analysis of Human Rights Watch Reports
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are two of the
most reputable organizations amongst many human rights NGOs that
have emerged in the global community. In our analysis on the modes
utilized by NGOs, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports
are important as they affect government policy, media reports, public
opinion, and other human rights NGOs.
Amongst the two — Amnesty International and the Human Rights
history, and cannot be reduced to a single category of identity.
40) Wilson (1996), pp. 378-379.
41) Wilson (1996), p. 146.
42) Dudai (2006), p. 783.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
71
Watch — this article will focus on analyzing Human Rights Watch reports.
Human Rights Watch, despite the importance of the organization, has
received considerably little academic attention compared to Amnesty
International.43) Originally founded as Helsinki Watch in 1978, Human
Rights Watch reports are utilized by governments, the media, human
rights activists, and lawyers. The initial mandate of the organization
was to monitor the behaviour of signatory countries to the Helsinki
accords, and such rights as economic rights were not scrutinized. Even
<Table 1> Human Right Watch Reports: Categories 44)
Categories
Number of Reports
Arms
69
Business
65
Children’s Rights
189
Counterterrorism
86
Disability Rights
4
Environment
ESC Rights
13
13
Health
122
International Justice
111
LGBT Rights
23
Migrants
76
Press Freedom
45
Refugees
101
Terrorism
11
Torture
75
United Nations
57
Women’s Rights
130
Source: Human Rights Watch
43) Claude Welch, “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch: A Comparison,” in Claude
Welch (ed.), NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), p. 94.
44) Some reports are cross-listed in different categories.
72 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
today, despite the creation of the category, “Economic Social Cultural
(ESC) rights,” the organization still largely focuses on monitoring the
status of civil and political rights.45) The <Table 1> shows the 17 categories
of Human Rights Watch reports.
The focus of this research is not to verify the assertion that human
rights NGOs in the North mostly focus on civil and political rights.
Nonetheless, it is still helpful to see topics that Human Rights Watch
focuses on. An inspection of the Human Rights Watch’s research
methodology clearly indicates that the organization’s main focus is on
providing accurate information, especially when it comes to interviews,
since they elaborate on the techniques utilized to assert the “veracity
of a statement.”46)
<Table 2> Reports on Children’s Rights in Nepal
Date
Title
2011-08-24
Futures stolen: Barriers to education for children with disabilities
in Nepal
2007-10-03
Discrimination against ethnic Nepali children in Bhutan: Submission
from Human Rights Watch to the Committee on the Rights of the Child
2007-02-01
Children in the ranks: The Maoists’use of child soldiers in Nepal
2004-01-29
Child soldier use 2003: A briefing for the 4th UN Security Council
Open Debate
2003-09-23
Trapped by inequality: Bhutanese refugees women in Nepal
1995-06-01
Rape for profit: Trafficking of Nepali girls and women to India’s
brothels
Source: Human Rights Watch
45) Widney Brown, “Human Rights Watch: An Overview,” in Claude Welch (ed.), NGOs and
Human Rights: Promise and Performance (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2001), pp. 76-77.
46) Human Rights Watch, “Our Research Methodology,” http://www.hrw.org/node/75141
(Accessed Nov 13, 2011).
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
73
To discover what can be learned from the report, we analyzed the
pattern of Human Rights Watch reports. If one were to conduct research
on children’s rights in Nepal on Human Rights Watch’s website, s/he
would find the reports shown on <Table 2>.
Since all Human Rights Watch reports follow the similar pattern,
we use the 76-page Human Rights Report, Children in the Ranks: The
Maoists’ Use of Child Soldiers in Nepal47) as an example. This chapter
identifies the elements examined earlier, the three principal tactics rights
NGOs frequently utilize in their reports.
1. Professional Language of Law
Chapter VII of Children in the Ranks is titled, “International Legal
Standards.” Herein the report identifies the following international
conventions whose provisions are what the main perpetrators — the
Maoists in this case — are violating:
• Geneva Convention
• ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour
• Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• The Rome Statute
The report also refers to the Capetown Principles and Best Practices
that provides a definition for child soldiers. The pertinent text of each
convention and principle the perpetrator had violated is quoted in the
report. Regarding the assertion that human rights reports identify the
type of truths that will call the international community into action,
47) Human Rights Watch, “Children in the Ranks: The Maoists’ Use of Child Soldiers in
Nepal,” Human Rights Watch, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2007).
74 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
this connects to the use of legal language and documents. This is due
to the way international human rights regimes operate. Law has been
the main way to deal with human rights issues, despite an increasing
number of voices calling for alternatives.
Of course, it is an undeniable fact that law is a powerful tool of
advocacy. However, in order to be able to tell and communicate the
stories of child soldiers through human rights reports, the researcher
must only look for stories that fit the frame of currently existing laws,
such as those identified above. Problems arise because it becomes
inevitable to simplify the complex nature of human suffering through
tangible legal language. Stories are told in the same legal tone, but
otherwise they lose their voice.
Indeed, Children in the Rank is “vernacularizing ethical matters”
through “scientific, technological and legal” perspectives by using legal
jargon. The use of child soldiers is wrong because it is against internationally accepted human rights conventions. It does not say that it
is morally wrong. This is because of the trend that, although we can
morally accuse a perpetrator of being guilty, we cannot morally prosecute
them, or hold them accountable. As far as accountability is concerned,
the concept of morality is thought to be vague and less objective which
is why it is important for human rights advocates to utilize “objective
internationally accepted” reporting techniques, faithfully subscribing to
the pertinent internationally accepted mechanisms and principles.48)
2. Principle of Objectivity
To assert the veracity of the information they provide, Children
in the Ranks indeed extensively utilizes footnotes as Dudai mentioned
earlier. For the 76-page report, there are 123 footnotes. The footnotes
48) Ennals (1982), p. 6.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
75
are used when the researcher refers to an international document, statistics
and interviews, etc. Basically when there might be any doubts or questions
about the statement on the report, there is a footnote. Through such
extensive use of footnotes, the quality of objectivity is rightly boosted,
and of course, there is no doubt that the report appears to be neutral.
Children in the Ranks is in no way a short report, however they
do utilize short case profiles when they focus on date of incidence,
names of the victims and the category of victim. For example, one of
many child soldiers during the civil war was identified as: “Sixteen-yearold Leela, a former child soldier for the Communist Party of Nepal.”49)
The name Leela is obviously a pseudonym meant to protect the victim/
survivor, where Leela becomes one of the “pure victims in general”
— “universal child” and perhaps “universal woman” in this case.50) A
very particular incidence in Leela’s life becomes a universalized version
of common phenomenon in Nepal during its civil war. Leela becomes
the symbolic representation of all the child soldiers. This particular issue
relates to the destruction of the victim’s subjectivity as well.
3. Deconstruction of Subjectivity
The universalized character Leela was used to depict an example
of deconstruction of subjectivity. Hastrup asserted, just like the refugees
in the camp who are stripped of their multi-layered personalities in order
to be endowed with the legal status of refugees, the victims in the report
(with various stories that are more or less similar) are “children” under
the international universal definition, since they were persons under 18
years of old.
As for the issue of the author’s subjectivity, the report contradicts
49) Human Rights Watch (2007), p. 2.
50) Malkki (1996), p. 378.
76 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
Wilson’s claim on the anonymity of the author. This particular report
not only acknowledges the names of principal researchers, but also those
of collaborators.51) The rationale behind such detailed revelation is unclear.
It may be that Human Rights Watch firmly believed that their researchers
and/or collaborator would be safe during the Peace Process, which is
when this report was written.
Regarding the assertion that victims are “silent,” victims in this
report do speak and are directly quoted from interviews. But this may
not be enough to assert that they are not silent. They only provide accounts
strictly in terms of the rights that had been violated. There were indeed
no eyewitness accounts but in many of the cases, the victims assumed
the role of eyewitnesses. Bystander accounts were not included. Bystander
accounts refer to those who were eyewitnesses but not victims. As for
Wilson’s assertion that human rights reports abstain from “interpreting
gaze of the bystander,” it is accurate to the extent that: (1) witness
accounts are overshadowed by the victim’s accounts, meaning not many
witnesses appear in the report; (2) witness accounts do exist, but there
is no room for interpretation.
For example, in explaining the Maoists’ propaganda campaign,
“Birendra, a universal victim who is a 16-year-old boy who had been
working for Argakhanchi district” says:52)
The Maoists did programs at my school. In three or four months, they
would come two or three times. They would sing, dance, and give speeches.
Usually there were six to nine Maoists; some were the same age as me,
some were older. In the speeches, they said, “You have to fight for the
people, for people’s education, and you have to come with us.” It lasted
about one hour. There were 35 students in my class; three (all boys) went.
There were five or six from other classes that went also. One girl and
the rest were boys.
51) Human Rights Watch (2007), p. 72.
52) Human Rights Watch (2007), p. 29.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
77
Considering Birendra’s dual identity as both victim and bystander,
Wilson’s theory is legitimate, as there is no pure bystander account
in this report.53) Even when we consider the above-statement as that
of bystander or witness, it is clear that the speaker does not provide
any interpretive comments in this interview. Another possibility is that
any comments that are possibly deemed interpretive might have been
edited out of the final report.
4. Decontextualization
Regarding the elements of decontextualization, as a result of all
the principal characteristics utilized by Human Rights Watch, dehistoricization occurs as a result of legal rationality. Of course, the report
does provide the background of the child soldier phenomenon in the
Nepalese context. If we look at the contents of the Children in the Ranks:
Summary and Introduction
Background
Recruitment and the Use of Child Soldiers
Forced Recruitment
Treatment of Children in the Ranks
The Government’s Detention of Former Child Soldiers and
Failure to Provide Rehabilitation Assistance
Ⅶ. International Legal Standards
Ⅷ. Detailed Recommendations
Ⅰ.
Ⅱ.
Ⅲ.
Ⅳ.
Ⅴ.
Ⅵ.
Chapter I and II are the likely sections for the contextual information
on the child soldier issues in Nepal. Chapter I, however, mainly consists
53) Another witness account that appears on page 55 is by Bikram, who is also a victim
as well as a witness.
78 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
of key recommendations and methodology, which leaves Chapter II as
the only section for contextual information. Chapter II mainly addresses
“The civil war’s impact on children” and “The People’s Movement and
the Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” which is the only relevant information for the child soldier case in Nepal. Therefore, the contextual
information or background information in Human Rights Watch reports
is what is directly related to the case in question. In this case, that
context is the civil war. Based on the international legal norms, the
report identifies the perpetrators and the victims.
In Children in the Ranks, historical information is largely omitted.
This might sound unreasonable considering the fact that the report provides
very detailed information on the incidents that had occurred. By historical
information here, we mean the main causes of human rights violations
in question. In the report, various rights entitled to children are violated
strictly in close connection to conflicts between the Communist Party
of Nepal (Maoist) and the repressive government of King Gyanendra.
Also in the report:
Rural Nepali girls are drawn to the CPN (M) because it promises them
from a life of servility ․ ․ ․ For example, 17-year-old Kalawoti told Human
Rights Watch that the Maoist initially convinced her to join their campaign
by explaining that as a woman she would never be able to achieve anything
even if she continues her studies.54)
Even though the Human Rights Watch report asserts that “the conflict
aggravated the problems of Nepal’s already impoverished population,”
it also makes an accusation that “education, too, suffered because of
the conflict.”55) It is definitely true that education suffered because of
the conflict, but it does not consider what Nepal’s education situation
was like before the conflict.
54) Human Rights Watch (2007), p. 24.
55) Human Rights Watch (2007), pp. 11-12.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
79
It is noted in the Human Rights Watch report that “Nepal ranked
124 out of 137 countries listed in the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index.”56) After the 10-yearlong civil war, however, the HDI dropped to 136. Perhaps what should
be noted is the fact that Nepal’s rank was almost at the bottom even
before the conflict. At least in this report, the main problem is that
Nepal’s HDI dropped to 136 from 124, not the fact that Nepal’s HDI
ranked 124 in the first place. The problem is that it fails to address
the structural issue. The report does not consider what happens when
the conflict ends, whether the child soldier case and the rights violations
during war will be remedied or not.
What is interesting is that, although the report provided the rights
that had been violated during and after the conflict and even during
the peace process, it did not address the structural processes of the conflict
itself: why and how it occurred. It is simply that: “Nepal’s 10-year
civil war has killed nearly 13,000 people.”57)
The main conclusion being, the violation of children’s rights in various
contexts was all due to the conflict. The reports do not and will not
consider the circumstances before the conflict, when such pre-conflict
circumstances actually contributed to the conflict in the first place. If
it wasn’t for the conflict, such rights violations might not have been
acknowledged. Again, the situations that require the attention of human
rights organizations are normally complex. The objective methodology
allows no room for contesting their facts and the truth overlooks many
layers of truths.
Another interesting detail is that Human Rights Watch holds the
government accountable. In its title at least, Children in the Ranks: The
Maoists’ Use of Child Soldiers in Nepal, the perpetrator is identified
as the Maoists instead of the government. As the report makes diversified
56) Human Rights Watch (2007), pp. 11-12.
57) Human Rights Watch (2007), p. 10.
80 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
recommendations to different parties however, the report makes seven
recommendations for the Maoist and eleven for the Government of Nepal.
This might not mean that Human Rights Watch regards the Maoists
as less responsible or guilty. Their recommendations are in awareness
of the current international human rights regimes where states hold the
key for solutions, ideal solutions being the observance of international
human rights law. There is no measure in place to hold the Maoists
accountable, because states are the only real acting agents in international
human rights regimes.
A disturbing question that might be raised here is that: if it had
not been for the civil war, rights violations within Nepal might not
have attracted any attention. In light of the purpose of human rights
reports, which is to monitor state’s compliance with international human
rights standard, this is not a simple matter. On Amnesty International’s
website, “News and Publications” on Nepal renders the following result:
Before the civil war, the average number of news and publications
published on Nepal was six, a figure that escalated to about 50 during
the war. After the war ended, it is reported at about 13 a year. The
<Table 3> Number of AI News and Publications on Nepal 58)
PERIOD
# of News and Publications 59)
Per Year
1990~1995
37
6
1996~2006
573
52
2007~201160)
66
13
Source: Amnesty International
58) Search for News and Publications on Nepal, http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/nepal
(Accessed Nov. 13, 2011).
59) The news and publications sometimes include stories related to neighbouring countries
such as Bhutan, and are therefore not exclusive to Nepal.
60) To be precise, from 2007 to November 9, 2011.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
81
<Table 4> Human Rights Watch Reports 61) on Nepal 62)
Date
Title
2011-08-24
Futures stolen: Barriers to education for children with disabilities
in Nepal
2010-12-14
Indifference to duty: Impunity for crimes committed in Nepal
2010-10-06
Walls at every turn: Abuse of migrant domestic workers through
Kuwait’s sponsorship system
2009-10-15
Still waiting for justice: No end to impunity in Nepal
2008-09-11
Waiting for justice: Unpunished crimes from Nepal’s armed conflict
2008-07-23
Appeasing China: Restricting the rights of Tibetans in Nepal
2007-10-03
Discrimination against ethnic Nepali children in Bhutan
2007-05-16
Last hope: The need for durable solutions for Bhutanese refugees
in Nepal and India
2007-02-01
Children in the ranks: The Maoists’use of child soldiers in Nepal
2006-03-28
Nepal’s civil war: The conflict resumes
2005-02-28
Clear culpability:“Disappearances”by security forces in Nepal
2004-10-06
Between a rock and a hard place: Civilians struggle to survive
in Nepal’s civil war
2004-02-09
Discrimination against Dalits in Nepal
2004-01-29
Child soldier use 2003: A briefing for the 4th UN Security Council
Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict
2003-05-13
“We don’t want to be refugees again.”
2001-08-29
Caste discrimination: A global concern
1997-06-01
Rape for profit: Trafficking of Nepali girls and women to India’s
brothels
Source: Human Rights Watch
contents of each news and publications are yet to be analyzed but it’s
interesting nonetheless. The number of reports after the war was over
61) “Reports” here only include Human Rights Watch’s comprehensive long version of reports,
not press releases.
62) Search result for Human Rights Watch Reports on Children’s Rights in Nepal: http://www.
hrw.org/publications/reports?topic=669&region=154 (Accessed November 13, 2011).
82 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
is not as high as that of during the war. In a way, crudely put, the
civil war put Nepal on the map of human rights reports.
The <Table 4> is the list of reports produced by Human Rights
Watch on or related to Nepal. This is an interesting result considering
the fact that Human Rights Watch started producing reports on Asia
— excluding the Middle East — in 1990, and the first report on Nepal
was in 1997. This is not to suggest that the conflict in Nepal instigated
the very first report but to point out that it is simply an interesting
detail to notice.
V. Conclusion
Because the main purposes of human rights reports are monitoring
and advocacy, rights NGOs strictly subscribe to the professional language
of law and principle of objectivity where subjectivity of ‘victim’ is
destroyed. Decontextualization occurs as a result of these tactics.
The value of objectivity is an important value, especially in human
rights reports. The moment reports appear biased in any way, they lose
the power of advocacy. The question is how the reports insert interpretation
without losing their value of objectivity. Some even say that the value
of objectivity does not exist.
Researchers assess what constitutes valuable evidence based on the
approved principle of objectivity. Since human rights reports presuppose
the universality of human rights, what constitutes violation of human
rights is also presumed to be universal, leaving no room for interpretation.
Wilson’s view is that human rights reports are essentially narratives
with plots and yet, human rights NGOs are obsessed with the imaginary
distinction between fact and interpretation.63)
63) Wilson (1996), pp. 150-152.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
83
Wilson does not provide any practical alternative however, and his
perspective is also very harsh. We must be aware of the reason why
major human rights NGOs adopt strategies such as an obsessive
subscription to objectivity. Also the current international human rights
regimes operate in a way that major human rights claims must be made
legally, in order to hold the alleged perpetrator accountable. The biggest
problem may be Raphael Lemkin’s legacy and his urge for the world
to respond to violent atrocity through legal means. As monumental as
it was in the history of human rights, the legacy also failed to relieve
the world of human suffering.
The global community is responding to violence. However, the world
only responds to visible violence and fails to address the structural violence
that ultimately causes the more or less visible violence. The figure in
Table 3 clearly demonstrates that during the civil war in Nepal, the
number of Amnesty reports on the country saw a sharp increase. The
problem with that tendency is that once the violence ends, so does the
world’s attention to the problem. We need to find a way to respond
to less visible violence, and human rights NGOs must find a way to
communicate that as well.
Truthful representation of human rights violations to perfection is
perhaps an impossible mission in which (1) the politics of human rights
seems too frail to protect people across the globe; (2) human rights
organizations represent human rights violations under the premise that
violence is an abnormality. Recalling our history where “war has been
the norm and peace the exception,”64) it is necessary to consider the
disturbing reality of seeing violence as normality, in order to adopt a
mode that represents violence differently. When violence is accepted
as normality, rather than hastily responding to the violence that is happening
and stop paying attention to the violence once it becomes more or less
“invisible” (meaning, it has been contained, etc.), we will look beyond
64) Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (London: Penguin Books, 2003), p. 66.
84 국제관계연구 ․ 제17권 제1호 (통권 제32호)
the violence into the systems that reproduce such violence. Zizek’s
assertion that almost-obsessive opposition of visible violence such as
genocide, racism, etc. “distract our attention from the true locus of trouble”65)
closely connects to this idea.
Unlike Wilson who strongly advocates for room for interpretation
in human rights reports, we suggest that the venues themselves through
which human rights stories are told should be diversified. Not only that,
the power of each venue should be escalated in a way dictated by a
legal paradigm that affects societies beyond the forum of the current
international human rights regime.
65) Slavoj Zizek, Violence (New York City: Picador, 2008), pp. 10-11.
Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
85
[ References ]
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and Shirin Rai (eds.). Global Social Movements (London: Athlone Press, 2000).
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NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
Cohen, Stanley. “Government Responses to Human Rights Reports: Claims, Denials, and
Counter Claims.” Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 3 (1996).
Dudai, Ron. “Advocacy with Footnotes: The Human Rights Report as a Literary Genre.”
Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2006).
Ennals, Martin. “Human Rights Reporting.” Index on Censorship, Vol. 11, No. 6 (1982).
Everything Shii Knows. “Chronicle of Current Events,” http://shii.org/knows/Chronicle_
of_Current_Events (Accessed July 29, 2009).
Hastrup, Kirsten. “Violence, Suffering and Human Rights: Anthropological Reflections.”
Anthropological Theory, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2003).
Human Rights Watch. “Children in the Ranks: The Maoists’ Use of Child Soldiers in
Nepal.” Human Rights Watch, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2007).
. “Our Research Methodology,” http://www.hrw.org/node/75141 (Accessed November
13, 2011).
Hunt, Lynn. The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History
(Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s, 1996).
International Council on Human Rights Policy. Journalism, Media and the Challenges
of Human Rights Reporting (Switzerland: International Council on Human Rights
Policy, 2002).
Jackson, Michael. The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression and Intersubjectivity
(Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2002).
Malkki, Lisa. “Speechless Emissaries: Refugees, Humanitarianism, and Dehistoricization.”
Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 11, No. 3 (1996).
Power, Samantha. A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York:
Harper Perennial, 2003).
Reddaway, Peter. Uncensored Russia. The Human Rights Movement in the Soviet Union
(London: Jonathan Cape, Ltd., 1972).
Schaffer, Kay, and Smith Sidonie. Human Rights and Narrated Lives: The Ethics of
Recognition (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004).
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Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others (London: Penguin Books, 2003).
Welch, Claude. “Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch: A Comparison.” In
Claude Welch (ed.). NGOs and Human Rights: Promise and Performance (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
Wilson, Richard. “Representing Human Rights Violations: Social Contexts and Subjectivities.” In Richard Wilson (ed.). Human Rights, Culture and Context:
Anthropological Perspectives (London: Pluto Press, 1996).
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Representation of Human Rights Violations by Human Rights NGOs
87
[초 록]
NGO 인권보고서에서 드러나는
인권침해의 실태 및 그 문제점
서창록 ․ 이주애 󰠐 고려대학교
인권의 개념이 전 세계적으로 확산됨에 따라 인권이라는 언어를 이용한 다양
한 요구사항 또한 점점 많아지고 있다. 인권침해 사례가 다양한 출구를 통하여
홍보 ․ 출판되는 상황에서, 인권이 어떻게 정의되며 어떠한 방식으로 표현되는가
에 대한 연구는 더욱더 중요해지고 있다. 인권 NGO에서 출판하는 인권보고서
는 언론, 대중의 의견 형성뿐만 아니라, 정부정책에도 영향을 미치기 때문에
그 중요성이 매우 크다. 이 논문은 인권보고서라는 매체가 인권 NGO들이 성취
해야 할 모니터링(Monitoring)과 애드보커시(Advocacy)라는 목적에 부합하기
위하여 몇 가지 중요한 전술을 충실하게 활용하고 있다고 주장한다. 그 몇 가지
전술이 무엇인지 파악한 후에, 이러한 전술로 인하여 간과되는 인권침해의 실태
및 문제점을 분석하였다. 국제인권운동에는 수많은 성과가 있었지만, 인권운동
현장의 발전을 위해 현재 인권침해의 문제가 보도되고 논의되는 형식의 문제점
을 보다 깊게 다루었다.
주제어: 인권, 인권운동, NGO, 인권보고서, 모니터링, 애드보커시
투고일: 2012년 2월 4일, 심사일: 2012년 2월 13일, 게재확정일: 2012년 2월 29일