Agents of Rights-Based Justice: Wangari Maathai and Kenya's Green Belt Movement

This article explores key debates about agents of justice in the human rights field. It analyzes the gains and limitations of NGOs that act as agents of rights-based justice by exploring Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement and its growth and impact in Kenya. Special attention is given to the indivisibility of rights, specifically environmental, civil, political, and social rights, by highlighting the development of the Green Belt Movement from a social arena in the late 1970s to a political arena in the late 1990s. As NGOs like the Green Belt Movement have worked to address direct hardships, such as environmental degradation, they have revealed deeper problems of disempowerment and disenfranchisement in the areas they serve, which in turn has validated the need for the international community to look beyond states as the primary agents of justice