New Tactics in Human Rights

Local human rights activists throughout the world struggle with a sense of isolation, are forced to “reinvent the wheel,” and choose tactics not because they are the best fit for the strategic situation, but because they are the only tactics they know. At the same time, innovative practitioners have devised a wide range of creative approaches for promoting human rights, but these are too-often known only by their closest allies.

Since 1999, the New Tactics in Human Rights project has created unique resources -- organized around analysis of potential solutions rather than that of specific issues, geographic regions or target groups -- that allow activists to clearly recognize the unique elements of their situation, and to seek promising approaches that have worked elsewhere and apply them to new regions or issues. It also improves activists’ ability to combine diverse tactics into complex strategies.