Amnesty International Contributions

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's February 2008

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Have Organizations like Amnesty International contributed to the improvement of human rights, and how? It would be ridiculous to say that organizations such as Amnesty International have not ever contributed to some fashion with human rights. This essay investigates thoroughly whether organizations such as Amnesty International have contributed to the improvement of human rights and if so, how have they done this? It is simple to recognise that such organizations have contributed to improving human rights and these organizations of concern are distinguished in two groups; non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the other being Private Groups which are also commonly known as relief or development groups or Private Voluntary Agencies (PVOs). The NGOs focus on promoting human rights ideas as they create and try to apply human rights norms to countries in need. Private Groups address situations such as fixing peace and war situations. By the end of this essay, it should be easy to recognise that both of these groups are vital in ensuring the improvement of human rights.

Analysing NGOs, their main aim as mentioned earlier is to create and apply human rights norms to areas and the best known group that performs this is Amnesty International. As expressed by Forsythe (2000:163), NGOs actions are focussed towards the path of social interactions and they push for liberalism with the human rights protection in international relations. For NGOs to be productive, they must have certain resources, which include an appropriate budget, contacts, expertise and a respectful reputation that gets the attention of the global media and governments to look closer at issues and situations. The limited number of groups that do possess the abilities just mentioned includes groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Doctors without Borders and other groups alike. Forsythe (2000: 164) suggests that the oldest...