Ethics in Action: The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations

by Edited by Daniel A. Bell , Jean-Marc Coicaud

• ISBN13: 9780521865661
• ISBN10: 0521865662
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-10-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book is the product of a multi-year dialogue between leading human rights theorists and high-level representatives of international human rights NGOs (INGOs). It is divided into three parts that reflect the major ethical challenges discussed at the workshops: the ethical challenges associated with interaction between relatively rich and powerful northern-based human rights INGOs and recipients of their aid in the South; whether and how to collaborate with governments that place severe restrictions on the activities of human rights INGOs; and the tension between expanding the organization's mandate to address more fundamental social and economic problems and restricting it for the sake of focusing on more immediate and clearly identifiable violations of civil and political rights. Each section contains contributions by both theorists and practitioners of human rights.

Table of Contents

Introduction: reflection on dialogues between practitioners and theorists of human rights Daniel A. Bell

Part I. Northern INGOs and Southern Aid Recipients: The Challenge of Unequal Power: 1. The pornography of poverty: a cautionary fundraising tale Bette Plewes

2. An imperfect process: funding human rights - a case study Mona Younis

3. Transformational development as the key to housing rights Steven Weir

4. Human rights INGOs, the North/South Gap: the challenge of normative and empirical learning Bonny Ibhawoh

Part II. INGOs and Governments: The Challenge of Dealing with States that Restrict the Activities of INGOs: 5. Dilemmas facing INGOs in coalition-occupied Iraq Lyal Sunga

6. Human rights in action: supporting human rights work in authoritarian countries Birgit Lindsnaes, Hans-Otto Sano and Hatla Thelle

7. Driving without a map: implementing legal projects in China aimed at improving human rights Sophia Woodman

8. Normative compliance and hard bargaining: China's strategies and tactics in response to International Human Rights criticism Sun Zhe

Part III. INGOs and Economic Rights: The Challenge of Dealing with Global Poverty: 9. Defending economic, social and cultural rights: practical issues faced by an International Human Rights Organization Kenneth Roth

10. Thinking through social and economic rights Neera Chandhoke

11. Amnesty International and economic, social and cultural rights Curt Goering

12. Moral priorities for International Human Rights NGOs Thomas W. Pogge

13. The problem of doing good in a world that isn't: reflections on the ethical challenges facing INGOs Joseph H. Carens

Conclusion: International NGOs as collective mobilization of transnational solidarity: implications for human rights at the United Nations Jean-Marc Coicaud.