4 - Expanding the Global Neighborhood

Summary

Incorporates first-person interviews with people who invented and implemented Amnesty International’s Urgent Action approach to demonstrate how early human rights advocacy implemented three tools of the justice of neighborhood - active care, habit, and appeals - and became a bridge to further political realization of justice. The chapter begins with a focus on a critical period in the early 1970s, when Amnesty International transitioned from working only for people imprisoned for nonviolent speech or beliefs, protected as “human rights” in articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to fighting to protect all people from torture and other forms of ill-treatment. Discusses the development of the Urgent Action approach in the USA and Germany. Discusses Amnesty International’s present-day Urgent Action approaches and questions related to effectiveness.