How can “Speaking Rights to Power” build political will to respond to human rights abuse? Examining dozens of cases of human rights campaigns, this book shows how communication politics build recognition, solidarity, and social change. Building on 20 years of research on five continents, this comprehensive study ranges from Aung San Suu Kyi to Anna Hazare, from Congo to Colombia, and from the Arab Spring to Pussy Riot. This book shows how human rights rhetoric matters—and how to make it matter more.



ALISON BRYSK is Mellichamp Professor of Global Governance at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of 10 books and edited volumes on human rights, including The Politics of Human Rights in Argentina (1994), From Tribal Village to Global Village (2000), Human Rights and Private Wrongs (2005), Global Good Samaritans: Human Rights as Foreign Policy (2009), and Speaking Rights to Power (2013). Professor Brysk has held visiting appointments in Argentina, Ecuador, France, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands, South Africa, and Japan and Fulbright appointments in Canada and India. In 2013-14, she was a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center.