Human Rights Strategies Benefits and Drawbacks

This book explores how various strategies have been developed over time to address different human rights objectives. It provides a critical examination of the benefits and drawbacks of different human rights strategies, and explores the cultural dimension; considering how particular strategies may be viewed and deployed differently in contemporary human rights practice.

An international team of expert legal scholars focus on three key human rights strategies: naming and shaming, strategic litigation and information politics. By analysing these strategies, they explain their respective advantages, pitfalls and idiosyncrasies. Chapters highlight that whilst these strategies may aid in furthering human rights law and protecting individuals from human rights violations, any strategy may have the potential for unintended negative consequences; sometimes at the expense of certain rights or certain individuals. Ultimately, the book highlights that strategies should not overshadow the essence of human rights, but are simply a means of communicating a message.

Human Rights Strategies is a fundamental resource for legal scholars and students with a particular interest in human rights and public international law. Legal practitioners, policymakers and NGOs in the human rights sphere will also find this to be a useful reference point.

Edited by Ingrid Westendorp, Senior Lecturer/Researcher, International Law and Woman and Law, Maastricht Centre for Human Rights, Maastricht University, the Netherlands