| Review of: | Ethics in action: the ethical challenges of international human rights non-govermental organizations edited by Daniel A. Bell, Jean-Marc Coicaud |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Israel de Jesús Butler |
| Reviewed in: | International Affairs |
| Date accepted online: | 10/04/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 83, Issue 06, Pages 1193-1234 |
Book Reviews: Human rights and ethics
This edited collection examines some of the dilemmas faced by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), funding foundations and national human rights institutions based in developed states that work in the area of human rights protection and promotion at the international level. While a number of contributions stem from individuals working in academia the book predominantly features perspectives from professionals in the field.
Broadly speaking, four questions seem to have concerned the authors over the different sections of the book. The first is the issue of how NGOs raise funds, in particular whether publicity campaigns exploit and misrepresent the helplessness of the people they are intending to assist. The portrayal of individuals in developing countries as powerless victims, it is said, encourages a 'pornography of poverty' (p. 23) which propagates inaccurate stereotypes among the public in developed states, as well as failing to direct attention to the complicated root causes of poverty and inequality. These contributions highlight an important long-term barrier for NGOs working to generate stable income from a public which has not been educated in the systemic injustices existing in the relationships between developed and developing states. However, several of the authors appear overly convinced of their own point of view without considering that in certain situations the portrayal of individuals as helpless (e.g. as a result of large-scale natural disasters) or as victims (e.g. of a tyrannical government) may actually be accurate.
Second, the book explores the problems that NGOs encounter when they decide to collaborate with regimes well known for human rights abuses in the hope that they may make a small short-term or great long-term improvement. The current dilemmas facing NGOs cooperating with the US in Iraq and with the Chinese government provide very interesting examples. Third, the book examines the alleged bias of NGOs in favour of civil and political rights and away from economic and social rights. While some of these contributions merely repeat the existing debate among academics about the value of economic and social rights a particularly interesting chapter by Kenneth Roth discusses the practical application of the methodology applied by Human Rights Watch to 'investigate, expose, and shame' violators of economic and social rights (p. 172). The other question addressed in the book concerns the way that NGOs should allocate their resources. In a particularly sophisticated (and complicated) chapter Thomas Pogge sets out a proposal for NGOs to dedicate their funds in such a way as to help the greatest number of individuals escape the greatest amount of harm. While the discussion is extremely interesting it is difficult to imagine NGOs actually using this kind of ethical sausage-making machine. Nevertheless, the complexity of the equations used by Pogge does a lot in itself to highlight the absurdity of the existing gap between rich and poor states.
With some notable exceptions, the collection's forte could not be said to be academic rigour. Many of the chapters are almost entirely descriptive and several of those that attempt to explore the ethical questions do so in a rather journalistic tone. However, this is not to say that the book does not make an important contribution to academic study and debate in this area. Its strength is the wealth of information it provides on the experiences of NGOs, funding foundations and national human rights institutions which would only otherwise be available to a researcher through interviews. As such it allows those studying the practice of human rights NGOs to acquire a taste of the activities they are involved in and the political, practical and ethical problems that they face in planning and carrying out their work. The collection does little to answer the important questions that it raises, but this goes to underline the fact that there seem to be no clear solutions. For those interested in the study of NGOs the book is an important contribution to the process of theorizing and systematizing their work and a valuable source of information on their workings. Much of the existing literature on NGOs has tended to concentrate on their lobbying activities and the place that they occupy in global governance. This book is valuable for giving an insight into the way that NGOs themselves plan out their activities and into the practicalities and ethical questions that they have to address.