New Rights Advocacy in a Global Public Domain
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Author | Ellen Dorsey,Paul Nelson |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066107076953 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
New Rights Advocacy in a Global Public
Domain
PAUL NELSON
University of Pittsburgh, USA
ELLEN DORSEY
Carnegie–Mellon University, USA
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 advo-
cacy on HIV/AIDS and on the right to water. New rights advocacy con-
stitutes a direct challenge to development orthodoxy, suggests a new
interpretation of the social movements protesting globalization, and mani-
fests a complex relationship between NGOs and poor country govern-
ments, in which NGOs often advocate on behalf of these governments’
sovereign rights to set economic and social policy.
KEY WORDS ♦civil society ♦human rights ♦international development
♦NGOs (or non-governmental organizations) ♦social movements
Introduction
The ascendancy of market-based, liberal approaches to trade, finance and devel-
opment policy, and the diminishing roles of national government ownership
and regulation of enterprises, are among the defining characteristics of world
politics since 1980. The accompanying growth of influence by corporations has
European Journal of International Relations Copyright © 2007
SAGE Publications and ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research, Vol. 13(2): 187–216
[DOI: 10.1177/1354066107076953]
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been well chronicled, as has the less powerful but significant rise of NGOs and
popular movements in national and international politics.
The expanding roles of these non-state actors, and the increasing import-
ance of decisions made in a variety of transnational fora have been summed
up by Ruggie (2004) as the emergence of a ‘global public domain’. This is a
political domain in which some — though by no means most — authoritative
decisions are made in settings that cross national boundaries. This domain is
‘public’ in a sense broader than ‘governmental’: corporations, states, inter-
national governmental organizations and civil society organizations participate
in authoritative decision-making processes. Moreover, domestic and trans-
national policy ‘spheres’ blur and intermingle in trade disputes, environmental
policy, and intrastate conflicts, all of which also involve states, international
corporations and NGOs and citizens’ movements.
‘Global public domain’ is an appropriately open framework by which to
conceptualize changes in governance that are neither consistent nor unidirec-
tional. While corporate interests have enjoyed success in reducing the regula-
tory and legal restrictions on their conduct, in some areas of public life civil
society organizations appear to gain prominence through their initiatives. In
still other instances, states are successfully working to restore some of their dis-
cretion and authority. Rule-making to govern corporate conduct, under the
rubric of corporate social responsibility, has been largely voluntary and ad hoc.
Ruggie (2004: 511) notes that rules that ‘favor global market expansion’ are
widely perceived as having advanced rapidly, while those that ‘promote equally
valid social concerns’ such as ‘labor standards, human rights, environmental
quality or poverty reduction, have not kept pace’.
We argue that the new rights advocacy and the full spectrum of human rights
that it advances, civil and political as well as economic and social, are essential
to understanding rule-making in this global public domain. One of the key
characteristics of contemporary civil society activism is a dramatic increase in the
application of human rights standards and strategies to economic, social and
development policy issues. Despite some successes elsewhere, NGOs have been
largely unable to alter the neo-liberal orientation of development finance, trade,
and the regulation of monetary policy and investment (O’Brien et al., 2000;
Nelson, 1996; Scholte, 2002). This article examines the emergence of new
strategies grounded in international human rights standards, strategies which
represent a new approach by NGOs and which challenge widely held views of
the relationship between NGOs and states.
Economic and social rights (ESC) such as the right to food, to health or the
broader ‘right to development’ have long been debated by governments,
scholars and NGOs (Steiner and Alston, 2000; Sengupta, 2000). But
recently these human rights have become more prominent in the agendas
and strategies of some bilateral development aid donors, notably the British
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