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Bennett, Karen L. (2017) The effectiveness of approach : addressing the value of rights-based interventions to protect human rights defenders in oppressive environments. Doctoral thesis, London Metropolitan University.
This commentary statement accompanies the research outputs (listed in Annex 1) submitted for the award of Ph.D. by Prior Output at London Metropolitan University. The commentary describes the genesis of the work presented, and brings coherence and context to the submission. The nine outputs in the submission (Outputs A – I) address the nature of approaches to interventions for the protection of human rights defenders. My premise holds that mobilising human rights-based approaches to interventions for the protection of human rights defenders in countries with oppressive regimes has significant potential for altering the nature and practice of human rights defence, improving security for human rights defenders, and impacting human rights implementation.
This submission presents an original contribution of research work conducted over an eight year period (2009 – 2016). Situated in the academic discourse, there are three distinct strands within the research submission, each strand contributing to a coherent body of work. The first strand is concerned with the effective implementation of the European Union Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders; the second strand is concerned with the development of a research agenda engaging practitioners and academics in multiple research activities investigating the human rights defender protection regime; and the third strand is concerned with enabling environments for human rights defenders through projects in Central Asia and Darfur, Sudan.
The work is derived from an agentic constructivist and human rights-based approach perspective. Through incorporating multiple, and also innovative methodologies, the research activities investigate defender protection situated in subjective meanings and multiple contexts, and the three strands of work together capture the eclectic perspectives of both the enablers of defenders, and defenders themselves. In this way the submission articulates pathways for a research agenda that informs and reveals problems in intervention approaches, encompassing local, regional and international engagement and support to human rights defenders.
The commentary and the research outputs consider approaches of social and political mechanisms necessary for the mobilisation of improved security in defender communities, studied in multiple regions of the world to advance empirical knowledge and normative argument. The work contributes to academic rigour and scholarship in the fields of human rights and international relations, and also other social science fields, including sociology, social policy, politics, law, international development and security and conflict studies.
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