New Rights Advocacy in a Global Public Domain

Abstract

Social and economic policy decisions are increasingly being taken in a global public domain in which national/transnational boundaries are blurred, and the `public' domain includes non-state actors. We argue that a new rights advocacy, advancing economic and social human rights as well as civil and political, is essential to understanding rule-making in the global public domain. New rights advocacy involves traditional human rights and development NGOs, social movement organizations and new `hybrid' organizations, in using human rights standards and methods to influence states, international organizations, and corporations. The new patterns of NGO engagement are studied through case studies of advocacy on HIV/AIDS and on the right to water. New rights advocacy constitutes a direct challenge to development orthodoxy, suggests a new interpretation of the social movements protesting globalization, and manifests a complex relationship between NGOs and poor country governments, in which NGOs often advocate on behalf of these governments' sovereign rights to set economic and social policy.