How advocates can confront power imbalances in human rights work

A new book from three human rights scholars says the field's power problems are fixable, and it names the tactics already working. Decolonial Human Rights Practice: Tactics, Obstacles, and Futures (Oxford University Press, 2026) draws on interviews with more than 150 advocates worldwide. Its co-authors are Professor Gulika Reddy of Stanford Law School, Professor Sarah Knuckey of Columbia Law School and Professor Anjli Parrin of the University of Chicago Law School, according to Stanford Law School. The practical question the book answers is one Parrin put plainly: existing scholarship, she says, offers substantial analysis of what is wrong with international human rights work, but considerably less guidance on "how do you do this right?" The authors researched between 2018 and 2025 in roughly a dozen countries, including India, Kenya, Guatemala, South Sudan, Myanmar, Iraq, Mexico, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic.

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