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In response to the rise of ‘populism’ and the perceived threat to human rights that it represents, human rights advocates have argued that NGOs must speak to the economic anxieties of majority populations by increasing work on economic and social rights. In this essay, I present a counter-argument to this proposal, drawing on insights from the COVID-19 pandemic and my experiences working at Amnesty International and monitoring emergency powers during the pandemic for Covid State Watch. I argue that international human rights NGOs should retain a focus on civil and political rights for three reasons. The COVID-19 pandemic has (1) revealed and reinforced the vast repressive power of the state and consequent serious risks to civil and political rights in the global North and (2) demonstrated that human rights NGOs are often alone in challenging restrictions to civil and political rights, especially during crises. I further suggest that, in contrast to the civil and political rights sphere, (3) human rights NGOs offer little ‘value added’ in the field of economic and social rights in the global North. I conclude by proposing that human rights serve their most useful function when they protect those who few others are willing to defend, such as the vector of disease, the terrorist and the criminal.

Pandemic Powers: Why Human Rights Organizations Should Not Lose Focus on Civil and Political Rights