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.

Professor Sarah Knuckey is a human rights advocate and clinical professor of law, and directs the Smith Family Human Rights Clinic and the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School. She works in partnership with advocates around the world to expose abuse, promote justice and rights, and challenge global inequities. Her academic research focuses on human rights methods and critique, armed conflict, clinical pedagogy, and mental health.

Professor Anjli Parrin is a Kenyan human rights advocate and lawyer. She directs the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, which works alongside partners and communities to advance justice and address the inequalities and structural disparities that lead to human rights violations worldwide. Parrin conducts human rights fact-finding, investigations, and advocacy around the world. Her practice and research focus on the areas of armed conflict and international criminal law, colonialism and its impacts, discrimination and inequality, and socio-economic rights.

Professor Gulika Reddy is a human rights advocate from India and the the Director of the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School. She has conducted human rights advocacy in partnership with communities and civil society around the world, including in Uganda, Liberia, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Yemen, the Central African Republic, Liberia, the Gambia, and Papua New Guinea. Her research interests include critical perspectives on human rights; decolonial, anti-racist, and transformative pedagogy; and the intersection between human rights and peacebuilding.