New Tactics in Human Rights

Join the ongoing tactical dialogue: Archiving Human Rights for Advocacy, Justice and Memory

Contribute your knowledge of human rights work by participating in our dialogues

Tactics for sustaining the well-being and security of defenders

Join the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) and the New Tactics online community of practitioners for an online dialogue on Tactics for sustaining the well-being and security of defenders from June 20 to 26, 2012.

New Tactics has hosted a number of dialogues on keeping human rights defenders safe and well: Staying Safe: Security Resources for Human Rights Defenders (July 2010), Self-Care for Activists: Sustaining Your Most Valuable Resource (Sept 2010) and Being Well and Staying Safe: Resources for human rights defenders (June 2011). Through these conversations, we were able to bring together human rights defenders in the field, organizations that work to support defenders, funders, trainers, mental health practitioners and others interested in well-being and security. From this base of individuals, organizations and information, we are excited to host a dialogue that focuses on the...

Archiving Human Rights for Advocacy, Justice and Memory

NOW OPEN!

Join WITNESS and the New Tactics community for an online dialogue on Archiving Human Rights for Advocacy, Justice and Memory from May 16 to 22, 2012. Archiving and preservation have long taken a backseat to more urgent aspects of human rights documentation and advocacy, but that is beginning to change. Human rights archives are increasingly playing a pivotal role in advocacy, restorative justice, historical memory, and struggles against impunity. At the same time, however, archivists and activists alike are grappling with the mounting challenges posed by the proliferation of digital documentation. How can we ensure that the critical documentation created today will be preserved and accessible in the future?

In this dialogue, we will explore the tactics and methods used by archivists to preserve human rights information. Are you new to this topic? This is an opportunity for you to learn...

Working with corporations to assess and improve human rights impact

Summary-writing in progress

Thank you for joining the New Tactics community for an online dialogue on the topic Working with corporations to assess and improve human rights impact from April 18 thru 24, 2012. The commitment for the featured resource practitioners to participate in this dialogue is now over - however, it is still possible to add comments below. We will write a summary of this dialogue which will be posted on this dialogue page by June 2012. Check back then!

Corporations can have an enormous impact on human rights - both good and bad. As corporations become more global, the potential impact on human rights also grows. Targeting governments as the primary duty-bearers for upholding their citizens’ rights, the international community has created a collection of treaties to hold governments accountable for their human rights impact. Without comparable treaties and mechanisms to define...

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Featured Tactic

Concentrating production of soccer balls in monitored facilities to prevent child labor

To verify that children are not working on the production process both inside and outside the factory, Reebok relies on the services of local human rights monitors who regularly, about twice monthly, inspect the production facilities. These monitors interview workers and supervise inspectors who oversee the shipments of panels in and out of the factories. They also maintain ties with the local community and visit surrounding villages to confirm that no Reebok balls are stitched outside the factories. As a result of these efforts, Reebok can now offer soccer balls labeled 'Guaranteed: Manufactured Without Child Labor.'

Re-discover interTactica!

Check out these past interTactica posts and re-discover this great resource. Thank you interTactica for 3 wonderful years of tactical advice!

Blog: Tactical Transferability: The Nonviolent Raid as Case Study

Posted January 31st, 2008 by Philippe Duhamel

NV raid Ottawa

photo: Benoît Aquin

One goal of the New Tactics Project is to help us adapt action methods in innovative ways. As we look to various tactics, the main focus remains on "transferability", the capacity to bring and apply a given tactical framework to a different issue or situation.

It's hard.

Most activists do not even think twice about "transferability' when they choose to organize a march or a boycott. But when it comes to more complex tactics, most people can't bring themselves to envision it in a different context. Yet, every tactic is transferable.

Because I have had some experience with the nonviolent raid as intervention tactic, some fairly recent, I thought it might be useful to show a few examples of how this tactic can be, and was, transferred across different campaigns on a number of issues. The goal of the exercise is to spark our imagination.

Highlighted Community Dialogue

Blog: Using development entry point to participate to local governance

Posted March 20th, 2012 by ntakobatagize

In many circomstances, talking about human rights and citizen participation would harm policy makers and local governments, as individuals and /or institutions.

New Tactics in Action: Stories of impact

Read stories about the impact that the New Tactics project has had on human rights work around the world.

New Tactics is the stepladder to effective community action

"The New Tactics Project has developed the single most impressive organizing methodology that I have ever encountered in my forty-plus years of progressive community work. I’ve worked on political campaigns…involved in tons of community organizing efforts of various sorts…I’ve done parish ministry for many years, and taught both...