Abstract This commentary examines the implications of the United States’ 2025 withdrawal from the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for the future functioning of international human rights monitoring. It considers whether, and to what extent, the UPR could continue to operate in situations of State non-cooperation by relying on information submitted by ‘other stakeholders’, including local governments, under the existing framework established by Human Rights Council Resolution 5/1. Drawing on the experience of voluntary local reviews (VLRs) developed to monitor implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, the commentary argues that many cities possess the institutional capacity, administrative expertise, and reporting experience necessary to contribute structured evidence on the local implementation of human rights. The VLR precedent demonstrates municipal reporting capacity rather than authority to assume functions reserved for States, making the analogy functional rather than legal. An initiative by nearly 150 American state and local elected officials urging the Human Rights Council to proceed with the UPR despite federal non-cooperation illustrates the practical relevance of this proposal. The commentary concludes that incorporating city-generated reports as stakeholder submissions could strengthen the evidentiary basis and resilience of the UPR while preserving its state-centred institutional architecture and contributing to a more multilevel approach to international human rights accountability.
Abstract This article interrogates the role that activism can play in pedagogy by focusing on student-led activism within formal curricula. This article is written using a collaborative ethnographic approach by alumni and faculty on a human rights internship undergraduate module, which runs along three parallel strands: 1. students are trained to undertake advocacy and campaigning, 2. they learn about the political sociology of social movements, the psychology of persuasion and marketing, and the international law and politics of human rights, and 3. they design and run a campaign for a wrongfully imprisoned academic or student. Through the reflections of the alumni on the module, this article explores the features of student activism as a pedagogical tool for learning ‘about, through, and for’ human rights education. We identify three themes that encapsulate our experiences of student activism: in-group dynamics, mixed hierarchical structures, and learning through reflection. Based on these themes, we argue that using student activism as a pedagogical tool enables teachers to align the process of learning with the goal of learning. Integrating human rights education and student activism in the context of higher education can create dynamic learning environments for students that empower both students and faculty, develop critical and reflective thinking, enhance students’ ‘employability’ skills, and contribute to human rights change.
Abstract This paper examines Community Cultural Development (CCD) as a participatory, creative methodology through which migrant human rights defenders, defined here as those who protect the rights of migrants at the Mexican border, whether they are migrants themselves or not—in Mexicali and Tijuana, Mexico, share lived experiences, strengthen their agency, and challenge dominant representations of migration and border activism. Instead of focusing on the artistic outputs of the project, the paper foregrounds the CCD process itself, exploring how collaborative artistic practice creates spaces for reflection, dialogue, and collective meaning-making among defenders working in complex and often hostile border environments. Drawing on a mural project involving 51 migrant human rights defenders in the Mexican border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, the paper investigates how participants used CCD processes to co-create visual narratives that reflected their identities, experiences, motivations, and advocacy work. Through workshops, collective decision-making, storytelling, and artistic collaboration, defenders were able to articulate perspectives that are frequently marginalized or obscured within state and media narratives of migration at the Mexico–US border. The analysis is informed by observations of the CCD process and post-project interviews with 10 participating defenders. The findings demonstrate how CCD functions not only as an artistic practice but also as a methodology for community empowerment, enabling defenders to build collective voice, foster solidarity, and publicly contest dominant narratives that frame migration, humanitarian action, and border governance. The paper argues that CCD serves as both a research methodology and an advocacy strategy, providing migrant human rights defenders with creative tools to represent their own experiences and assert narrative power within increasingly adversarial and shrinking civic spaces.
Abstract This article presents the Human Rights Mentoring Program of the Human Rights Center of the University of Buenos Aires as an innovative form of activist pedagogy in human rights developed within a large and diverse public university in a Latin American country. The analysis focuses on the context in which it is carried out. It considers that the design of programs of activist pedagogies varies significantly according to the specific circumstances in which they are designed. The main aim of this program is to guide undergraduate students in developing a career with a human rights perspective, proposing a pathway for them to appreciate the various ways in which the legal profession can be practiced with this orientation. It consists mainly of induced interactions between students and experts from different areas of the legal profession, in which the latter share their experiences in the field of human rights and the professional and ethical challenges they have encountered. The program had adopted a student-centered approach, changing over the years according to the needs and expectations of students. It shows human rights from a transversal perspective and that the human rights approach is relevant to the practice of law in general, regardless of the area of expertise of each professional.
Abstract The intersection between climate change and human rights has attracted growing academic and institutional attention, particularly regarding the obligations of states under international law. However, the role of national human rights institutions (NHRIs) in addressing this nexus remains underexplored. This article addresses this gap by examining how and to what extent NHRIs in Europe engage with the human rights implications of climate change. By combining doctrinal legal analysis with original empirical data from a regional survey of European NHRIs, the article demonstrates that while engagement varies significantly among institutions, their mandates and legal frameworks provide a strong foundation for meaningful involvement. Drawing on the findings of both legal and empirical analysis, the article formulates practice-oriented implications for NHRIs, their networks, and states. It argues that NHRIs, as independent institutions grounded in law and legitimacy, are uniquely positioned to help ensure that climate action respects human rights—both now and for future generations.
