Human rights activism predates the 20th century, that includes the
anti-slavery movement. Historical movements were usually concerned with a limited set of issues, and they were more local than global. The activities of the
International Federation for Human Rights (originally the International Labor Organization)—founded in France by the international labor movement in the 1920s—can be seen as a precursor to the modern movements. This organization was quickly embraced by the United States and European powers, perhaps as a way to counteract the
Bolshevik call for global solidarity among workers.
Anti-colonialism among concerned Europeans and Americans, pressuring the Belgium government to make political reforms Another major global human rights movement grew out of
resistance to colonialism. The
Congo Reform Association, founded in 1904, has also been described as a foundational modern human rights movement. This group used photographs to document terror wrought by Belgians in the course of demanding rubber production in the Congo. These photographs were passed among sympathetic Europeans and Americans, including
Edmund Morel,
Joseph Conrad, and
Mark Twain—who
wrote satirically as King Leopold: ...oh well, the pictures get sneaked around everywhere, in spite of all we can do to ferret them out and suppress them. Ten thousand pulpits and ten thousand presses are saying the good word for me all the time and placidly and convincingly denying the mutilations. Then that trivial little kodak, that a child can carry in its pocket, gets up, uttering never a word, and knocks them dumb! The photos and subsequent literature triggered international outrage at Belgian crimes committed against the Congolese. As the century went on, African Americans including
W. E. B. Du Bois,
Walter White, and Paul Robeson joined with leaders of the
African diaspora (from Haiti, Liberia, the Philippines, and elsewhere) to make a global demand for basic rights. Although the origins of this movement were multifaceted (owing strength both to the capitalist
Marcus Garvey and to the more left-wing
African Blood Brotherhood), a definitive moment of international solidarity came after
Italy's annexation of Ethiopia in 1935.
World War II and the United Nations In the
aftermath of World War II, the Pan-Africanist contingent played a major role in causing the United Nations to explicitly protect "human rights" in its founding documents. Du Bois compared colonies across the world to ghettos in the United States and called for a world document affirming the human rights of all people. Du Bois stated at the time that, evidently, "the only way to human equality is through the philanthropy of the masters". However, the US government supported powerful domestic organizations willing to promote its concept of human rights, such as the
American Bar Association and the
American Jewish Committee. These organizations won public approval of the United Nations and the human rights concept. The concept of human rights was indeed built into
United Nations with institutions such as the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Active diplomacy by Latin American countries was instrumental to the process of promoting these ideas and drafting relevant agreements. As a result of this pressure, more human rights language was adopted at the 1945
San Francisco Conference to create the UN Charter. Revelations about the
Holocaust, followed by the
Nuremberg Trials, also had a major influence on the movement, Some NGOs represented the UN charter as a victory for the human rights movement, while other activists argued that it paid lipservice to human rights while basically serving the interests of the great powers. Early in the
Cold War, the "human rights" concept was used to promote the ideological agendas of the superpowers. The
Soviet Union argued that Western powers had exploited people in colonized lands around the world. A large percentage of
Soviet propaganda to the
Third World centered on charges of racism and human rights violations. The United States countered with its own propaganda, describing its own society as free and the Soviet Union's as unfree. Human rights language became an international standard, which could be used by great powers or by people's movements to make demands. In 1967,
Martin Luther King Jr. began to argue that the concept of "civil rights" was laden with isolating, individualistic
capitalist values. He said: "It is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights. When you deal with human rights you are not dealing with something clearly defined in the Constitution. They are rights that are clearly defined by the mandates of a humanitarian concern." For King, who began to organize the multi-racial
Poor People's Campaign just weeks before his
April 1968 assassination, human rights required
economic justice in addition to
de jure equality. After the
decolonization of Africa and
of Asia, former colonies gained majority status in the UN's Commission on Human Rights, and focused their attention on global
white supremacy and
economic inequality—in doing so, choosing to admit other types of human rights abuses. Some of these nations argued that focusing on civil rights, as opposed to human rights, was a privilege available only to the wealthy nations that had benefited from colonialism.
Changes in the 1970s Memorial in Prague Since the 1970s the human rights movement has played an increasingly important role on the international scene. Pressure from the international human rights movement brought human rights increasingly to the political agendas of numerous countries and diplomatic negotiations. Advocates for women's human rights (sometimes identifying as part of the
feminist movement), criticized the early human rights movement for focusing on male concerns and artificially excluding women's issues from the
public sphere. Women's rights have nevertheless gained prominence in the international human rights movement, particularly insofar as they include protection from
gender-based violence. In
Latin America, the issue of women's human rights intersects with the struggle against authoritarian governments. In many cases, for example the
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women's groups were some of the most prominent advocates of human rights in general. Mainstream acceptance of women's human rights within the international human rights movement has increased since 1989. The 1990s also saw a call to "defend the defenders" of human rights—to protect human rights activists from violence and repression. However, there has been an increase in the number of attacks on activists. The movement has come to a standstill as individuals continue to push for liberation but are unable to report their findings out of fear of harm or death. The number of female activists has been growing since the beginning of the feminist movement, however, there has been an increased number of attacks on women. In 2016, the Taliban targeted female activists to send a message. The internet has expanded the power of the human rights movement by improving communication between activists in different physical locations. This is known as
mediated mobilization. Individuals who are using their voices to communicate about the injustices are now able to communicate with like-minded people who use their voices through participatory journalism. The human rights movement has historically focused on abuses by states, and some have argued that it has not attended closely enough to the actions of corporations. In the 1990s, some early steps were taken towards holding corporations accountable for human rights abuses. For example, the
Parliament of the United Kingdom approved a resolution to censure
BP for funding Colombian death squads. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch also began to pressure other nongovernmental organizations to take human rights into account. In 1993, Human Rights Watch successfully lobbied the
International Olympic Committee to vote against awarding the
2000 Summer Olympics to
Beijing because of China's human rights record. ==Issues and activities==