Sheltered Venues: Human Rights Contestation from Above - Yet from Below

• In Event: Poster Session: African Politics Conference Group; Middle East and North Africa Politics & Human Rights
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Human Rights

Abstract

Sheltered venue’s are salient spaces through which non-state actors establish a foot in door and deepen their sustained human rights advocacy in Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs). This article addresses the neglected relevance of sheltered venues for non-state actors as part of innovations in the study of Intergovernmental Organizations. First, it conceptualizes the relevance of sheltered venues with respect to constructivist debates on agency and structure. Second, it empirically substantiates two instances of sheltered venue relevance during processes of human rights norm contestation; namely with regard to liberation movements use of the Trusteeship Council and Indigenous Peoples use of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Third, it details the impact sheltered venues have when non-state actors need to shift to more prominent IGO venues. Finally, and more broadly, the article illustrates that a focus on sheltered venues specifies how and with what capacity non-state actors enter an IGO from above the domestic realm; yet also how non-state actors evolving participation comes to be shaped from below and within the nested structure of an IGO.

Author

• Jan Luedert