Stones of Hope

Many human rights advocates agree that conventional advocacy tools-- reporting abuses to international tribunals or shaming the perpetrators of human rights violations--have proven ineffective. Increasingly, social justice advocates are looking to social and economic rights strategies as promising avenues for change. However, widespread skepticism remains as to how to make such rightsrealon the ground. Stones of Hopeengages with the work of remarkable African advocates who have broken out of the conventional boundaries of human rights practice to challenge radical poverty. Through a sequence of case studies and interpretive essays, it illustrates how human rights can be harnessed to generate democratic institutional innovations. Ultimately, this book brings the reader down from the heights of official human rights forums to the ground level of advocacy. It is a must-read for human rights advocates, development practitioners, students, educators, and all others interested in an equitable global society.

Lucie E. White is Louis A. Horvitz Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Jeremy Perelman is Lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School and a doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School.