Human Rights Movements across Latin America

Abstract

Abstract This chapter reviews the development of, and the existing research on, human rights movements in Latin America. Following a brief history of the emergence of human rights movements across the region under authoritarian rule, it revisits key general elements of human rights movements in Latin America and discusses the evolution of human rights activism in the region since the 1990s. In tracing the expansion of the human rights agenda in terms of issues and actors, the chapter identifies two major trends: from human rights towards citizenship rights, as well as towards social rights. This expansion of the human rights agenda is reflected in a broadening of the field of movements and movement organizations that make human rights-oriented claims. Today, many—if not most—social movements across Latin America include human rights claims in their collective action frames. Consequently, the narrow focus on a rather minimalist conception of human rights that had characterized the first generation of human rights movements has been replaced by a much broader human rights agenda that encompasses social, economic, and cultural rights, as well as by more specific demands based on issue- or group-specific rights. As a consequence, even if many and quite active human rights organization persist throughout the region, Latin America’s traditional human rights movements have lost in relative importance. Yet this does not reflect a diminishing relevance of human rights claims in the struggles of social movements.