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Acknowledgments It was summer 1996 when I felt as if I had discovered national human rights institutions . I was in Mexico City, doing preparatory work for dissertation chapters on Latin America when I heard a radio announcement that caught my attention. It was an advertisement for “human rights,” informing people they had rights by virtue of being human and, interestingly, they could claim these rights at the “National Human Rights Commission.” I was both impressed and bemused by the thought that the language of human rights was being openly promoted (something that would not happen in the United States). I was also intrigued by the seeming simplicity and assuredness of it all: human rights as commodity, to be sold and consumed in a neat exchange. Later that week, walking through the basement stacks of a research library, a large collection of reports caught my eye: they were the annual reports of Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission , voluminous tomes, filled with data. As a researcher, I couldn’t help but get excited by the wealth of material, and the obvious paradox on display, as state actors who violated human rights were also placing themselves as central defenders of these rights. I was soon off to see for myself the offices of the National Human Rights Commission. What impressed me immediately was the line of people, many of them of obviously modest means, holding “complaint forms,” detailing how their various human rights had been violated. There were no protests, no banners or chants; it was all very bureaucratic and controlled. I found my way to the Research Department, collected materials, and set up interviews for another day. Before long I was heading to Chiapas to see how the NHRC was faring in the midst of the violent conflict there. Speaking to a mix of state and NGO representatives, 480 acknowledgments I was soon convinced that the NHRC opened up a complex and unexplored world of state-society interaction. When I returned to New York, I researched enough to learn that the NHRC was part of a new class of global actors, “national human rights institutions.” Though a seminal document had been issued just a few years earlier, virtually nothing was written on these institutions—certainly nothing in my own discipline of political science. I knew that most human rights students had never heard of these nascent bodies. I also knew that this would be the subject of a postdissertation book. Here, at long last, is the book I set out to write, though it is fundamentally different from the one I would have written back then. Working on uncharted ground, I nonetheless discovered a growing body of reports by international organizations and NGOs and work by a few legal scholars. Foremost among these was Linda Reif, whose groundbreaking article in 2000 on the links between NHRIs and democracy helped establish the field. When Linda’s article appeared, I was in the middle of a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. I would not have been able to devote myself to full-time research that year had it not been for Jack Montgomery, who was first to believe in this project. I am forever grateful for his generosity, supporting me as if I had been his own student. The group he convened around shifting notions of sovereignty in Asia opened up a world of possibilities for me. At our meetings in Cambridge and Laguna Beach, and in follow-up conversations, I was given invaluable advice in those early days. Other special thanks go to Ryan Goodman, who convened a remarkable group of people working on and at NHRIs over the course of a few years at Harvard Law School. For someone writing on NHRIs, it was a who’s who of personalities all gathered in one room. While the Chatham House Rule applied to those closed-door discussions, the insights and contacts I gained enriched the book immeasurably. Ryan’s own work on international human rights, no less than his unparalleled promotion of the study of NHRIs, has always set a high bar; and I am very thankful for his ongoing support of my work. From those meetings, I would especially like to thank Richard Carver, Jim Cavallaro, Kieren Fitzpatrick, Mario Gomez, C. Raj Kumar, Julie Mertus, David Meyer, Obiora Okafor, Tom Pegram, Mindy Roseman, Peter Rosenblum, Margaret Sakaggya, Sima Samar, and Chris Sidoti. I also gained valuable insights from Raymond Atuguba, Brian Burdekin, Hyo-Je Cho...

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