ABSTRACT
This chapter gives an overview of the “human rights defender” term's emergence and success story. It opens with a historical account of its Cold War origins in the 1970s and 1980s and its meaning and uptake among international human rights advocates. It then analyzes the genesis of the 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders as an impactful instrument to legitimize human rights work and rally support around the topic. The chapter closes with a review of contemporary conceptual debates around the human rights defender (HRD) term, namely the controversies over its definitional scope, power dynamics, and possible adverse consequences of its application.
