Human Rights and Amnesty International

Abstract

This is a descriptive, analytical treatment of international human-rights nongovernmental organizations. A typology of human-rights groups is developed. Threats to human and political rights are analyzed. Following a brief description of Amnesty International as a new type of noneconomic interest group in world politics, the article focuses explicitly on three practical political— yet, also, social—scientific—problems: (1) the legitimacy of human-rights organizations; (2) the selection of targets and of tactics, including prepolitical resource-generating tactics; and, especially, (3) the problems entailed in evaluating the impact, if any, of interest group activities. The last, which questions the efficiency of translation of activity into access and then influence, opens up another discrete question: whether and how the group evaluates its own goals, structure and tactics. This evaluation suggests that Amnesty International has meas urable impact on the defense of human and political rights.

A non‐profit accountability framework

“…The idea is conceptually challenging, though. Harry Scoble and Laurie Weisberg, in a discussion of Amnesty International, note that the effectiveness of advocacy groups (they use the term “interest group”) “is either not treated at all … or it is treated in a nonsystematic manner which simplistically equates activity with impact” (1974: 22). Alan Hudson agrees, noting that “NGOs' evaluation of advocacy is very limited, with most NGOs struggling to come to grips with it” (2002: 415).…”

Human Rights and Strong Institutions: A Study of Amnesty International in Nigeria

“…Another popular strategy employs by Amnesty International in the fight toward promoting human rights around the world is called "shamming and naming". This tactic entails damaging the reputation of human right abuses in the eyes of relevant institutions through massive condemnation (Scoble & Wiseberg 1974). Amnesty International Nigeria has engaged in the act of calling out human right violator which include certain government institutions.…”

Amnesty International and Women's Rights

“…26 They include personal notes and letters from staff and activists as well as (confidential) documents, such as meetings minutes and letters from AI bodies at the Swiss, the German, the US, the Canadian, and the Austrian sections. 27 I included the following secondary literature in the data corpora: Scoble and Wiseberg 1974;Ennals 1982;Steiner 1991;Clark and McCann 1991;Besset 1991;Thakur 1994;Fried 1994;Baehr 1994;Sidhu and Chatterjee 1995;Bahar 1996;Pack 1999;Mutua 2001;Clark 2001;Hopgood 2006;Lake and Wong 2009;Kelleher and Bhattacharjya 2013.…”