ABSTRACT
This chapter examines one aspect of the human rights struggle: that of the role played by nongovernmental organizations (NGO) in the protection of human rights. In Eastern Europe, the emergence of private nongovernmental human rights organizations—a Moscow-based Amnesty International Group, a Moscow Committee for Human Rights, the Charter 77 Movement in Czechoslovakia, the Polish Workers' Defense Committee—is an entirely new phenomenon in the evolution of East European Communist development. In addition to the proliferation and increasing diversity of human rights organizations throughout the world, a number of specific trends are discernable in the expanding NGO universe. The human rights organizations, which are frequently crisis oriented, have focused on violations and have not yet attempted to analyze underlying causes of repression. As the human rights community moves away from the area of promotion to that of protection, individuals have recognized the need for developing new strategies and tactics, including new ways to mobilize organizational resources.
