Considers how rights have been used to address economic and social justice. Social and economic justice advocates turned toward what is commonly called a rights-based approach to development, beginning in the 1990s. The case study in this chapter traces how and why Oxfam recast its goals as a set of what it called “basic rights.” Incorporated original interviews and archival research to outline Oxfam’s adoption of human rights language in its aid and economic justice advocacy work. Rights-based advocacy by development groups was taken up at the same time that traditional human rights NGOs hotly debated how and whether to take up economic, social, and cultural rights more directly. Argues that the emergence of rights arguments in development work demonstrate the potential flexibility of human rights tools in justice-seeking.

Incorporates first-person interviews with people who invented and implemented Amnesty International’s Urgent Action approach to demonstrate how early human rights advocacy implemented three tools of the justice of neighborhood - active care, habit, and appeals - and became a bridge to further political realization of justice. The chapter begins with a focus on a critical period in the early 1970s, when Amnesty International transitioned from working only for people imprisoned for nonviolent speech or beliefs, protected as “human rights” in articles 18 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to fighting to protect all people from torture and other forms of ill-treatment. Discusses the development of the Urgent Action approach in the USA and Germany. Discusses Amnesty International’s present-day Urgent Action approaches and questions related to effectiveness.

Discusses the book’s findings and sums up lessons of the study for the conduct of international politics. Argues that human rights work has contributed significant, politically embedded global resources for justice-seeking. The resources as they now exist support active transnational concern for individuals in diverse circumstances, offer a language of appeals for issues related to justice, and inspire the search for more justice in global politics.