Human Rights Defenders and the Law: A Constitutional and International Legal Approach

This book presents a comprehensive examination of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and provides an analysis of the level of its reflection in regional human rights systems.

The work explores the development of the role of the individual in human rights protection since the 1998 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. It locates the nature, activities and need for protection of human rights defenders within the current international legal framework and outlines the place and scope for a specific right to promote and protect human rights. It traces the origins of the right and the main international instruments that define it, both at national and international level. Finally, it considers the impact that the right to defend human rights can have on constitutional and international law.

The book will be a valuable resource for academics and researchers working in the areas of International Human Rights Law and Constitutional Law.

Dr Núria Saura-Freixes is an independent jurist and researcher based in Brussels. She has worked as a Lecturer in Constitutional Law and Freedom of Expression at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and has been a Visiting Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, as well as at other relevant centers of research.