Walking the tightrope: the diplomacy of human rights

Abstract

This article explores the historical and normative framework of human rights as an international issue, the tensions and conflicts faced by states in implementing diplomatic policies aimed at the protection and promotion of human rights, the salient debates in the human rights discourse and the instruments and institutional mechanisms available, in both the domestic and the international context, to implement human rights diplomacy. Finally, the limits of human rights diplomacy and its relationship to the use of force to achieve the same objectives is investigated.