The International Commission of Jurists: Global Advocates for Human Rights

Conclusion: Politics, Law, and Human Rights NGOs

Conclusion: Politics, Law, and Human Rights NGOs Without some working conception of the political role of interest groups, their functions, and the ways in which their powers are exercised, we shall not be able adequately to understand the nature of the political process. Descriptions of that process that treat the nonparty group peripherally and merely anecdotally are not sufficient. The puzzle cannot be solved if some of the pieces are virtually ignored. -David B. Truman l The puzzle of international politics cannot be solved without understanding NCO functions. Some human rights advocates tout their work as nonpolitical, but the IC] has participated in a global struggle for power-the individual against the state, international organizations against sovereign governments. Although it may not impress realists, the IC] is a functional sibling of domestic public interest groups with demonstrable influence on promotion, standard setting, and protection. Although idealists may be impressed, the IC] has not exercised sufficient influence to herald the imminent arrival of a new world order. NCO advocacy for human rights since World War II resembles the nineteenth-century campaign that ended the slave trade. Ethan Nadelmann concludes that moral protest mobilized by the British Anti-Slavery Society was the fundamental impetus for change." Paul Lauren also recognizes that group's considerable influence but concludes that structural changes in political, military, and economic power made the critical difference." Nadelmann's work on prohibition regimes suggests that NCOs could contribute to a new moral/legal 272 Conclusion order that criminalizes torture, summary exections, and disappearances . From Lauren's vantage point, the Cold War's end could have greater impact on human rights than the combined efforts of all NGOs. The first section below contrasts the Anti-Slavery Society impact on nineteenth-century world politics with the findings from this study of the ICJ's influence since 1952. The second section summarizes the key findings about organizational factors that determined the ICJ's effectiveness. A final section offers conclusions about the ICJ's place in a changing world order. NGO Functions in International Relations States, intergovernmental organizations, and NGOs all engage in promotion , standard setting, and protection. Their diverse activities have been variously identified as functions, methods, strategies, and tactics. The functional analysis employed throughout this study provides the framework for its main conclusions. Promotion Human rights promotion involves socialization, recruitment, and communication. Nadelmann characterizes NGOs as "transnational moral entrepreneurs." These groups mobilize popular opinion and political support ... ; they stimulate and assist in the creation of like-minded organizations in other countries; and they playa significant role in elevating their objective beyond its identification with the national interests of their government. Indeed, their efforts are often directed toward persuading foreign audiences, especially foreign elites, that a particular prohibition regime reflects a widely shared or even universal moral sense, rather than the peculiar moral code of one society.' The Anti-Slavery Society promoted moral outrage through socialization , recruitment, and communication. It sponsored international conventions, translated publications into several languages, "kept in close touch with abolitionists abroad," and sent "propaganda to the press and leading public figures .... It played a role in prompting the creation of similar societies in France, the United States, Brazil and elsewhere." The Society "thus represented perhaps the first transnational moral entrepreneur-religious movements aside-to play a significant role in world politics generally and in the evolution of a global prohibition regime specifically." 5 The ICJ has similarly functioned as a promotional entrepreneur. Conclusion 273 Its rule of law congresses, regional conferences, national seminars, and publications have socialized elite recruits in a global communications network. The IC] has provided legal consultants; cosponsored workshops to train paralegals, community organizers, and police; and provided practitioner handbooks. Development assistance for promoting human rights made educational programming and technical assistance major components of the IC]'s enhanced program. The message undermined blind patriotism. National loyalty and personal ambition toppled a few fallen angels no longer associated with the IC]. A considerably larger number of activists appear to have become more committed to the human rights movement than to their national government. African NGO participants at an IC] workshop adopted a "Profession of Faith" that illustrates their socialization to universal human rights. For a century, the African has been denied as an individual: colonial repression was followed, despite the hopes of liberation and the promises of liberty, by the era of the repression of the continent by dictators "with hands stained with...