The political economy of human rights in Israel/Palestine

Abstract

This article offers evidence that funders, their preferences and their agendas, play a central role in the political economy of human rights in and around Israel/Palestine. "The political economy of human rights" refers here to the political and economic dimensions to how human rights activism is produced, consumed and distributed. The resulting "products" include different kinds of activism: various organizations and strategies aimed at different populations, abuses or deprivations. Each of these "products" entails a particular set of consequences for making claims on the state, as well as for improving or protecting different conceptions of rights for different populations. Sustained public pressure and claimsmaking on states generally require organizational resources that themselves require f uncling. The article considers in particular how the influx of forms of "capital" (symbolic, labor-material, economic), largely from abroad, impacts human rights advocacy, contributing to the spread of activism in particular directions - in part by encouraging the formation of new groups and new points of focus. Indeed, the article shows how funding has been a crucial condition of possibility for the emergence of a human rights movement in Israel. The article examines in depth two key initiatives and their impact, both direct and indirect, on the field of human rights activism in, and around, Israel/Palestine: the Euro Mediterranean Partnership Agreement (particularly its human rights provisions and funded projects) and the New Israel Fund's attempt to create a cadre of civil rights lawyers in Israel through its Law Fellows Program. The article considers how, while both of these initiatives open up new possibilities for human rights activism, they are at the same time limited in crucial ways in their potential for improving the enjoyment of human rights.