ABSTRACT
The Helsinki Final Act and Soviet dissent were a precedent for human rights defenders. It is worthwhile to remind their origins in order to understand the intellectual dimension inherent to the right to promote and protect human rights. A social movement for dissent in the eastern countries gained a legal umbrella under the “right to know and act” of individuals on human rights. The conflict of individual v. state was present in the drafting of the 1998 Declaration. Intellectual human rights defenders, conscientious objectors, artists, or academics complying criteria of interdependence of rights, peaceful means, pluralism, and freedom of thought are human rights defenders. However, their work is less visible and needed of protection. National human rights institutions respecting the Paris Principles can be human rights defenders too if they promote and protect human rights. When individuals exercise their rights in association with others, groups, NGOs, or trade unions, they become human rights defenders. Hence, the 1998 Declaration legal framework applies, but complexities emerge from the groups’ collective character. Respect for human condition demands a focus on the exercise of rights, not only on the personhood of rights. The turning point that arrives under globalization is this change of paradigm.
