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

This book aims to delineate major ethical challenges faced by human rights INGOs.

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

9780521865661, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 October 2006

336 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.66 kg

'Ethics in Action fills an important gap in the growing literature on the contributions that INGOs make to the international system, and the editors deserve praise for taking on such an important, yet often neglected, subject.' H-Net Reviews

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.

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.

Subject Areas: International human rights law [LBBR], International institutions [JPSN]