Transnational advocacy & global poverty : the political economy of human rights

Globalized ideas and norms are often described as being changed globally by a prevailing\ud model, specifically a ???transnational advocacy-based network??? (TAN) model. The cases explored\ud by TAN are issues of global concern in human rights (such as torture). They suggest human\ud rights violations are changed by the social pressure from powerful states and predominant state\ud actors as they shame and pressure violating states in the international system. Subsequently, this\ud model suggests that violations in human rights (normatively) do not change without these\ud pressures, thus making the prescription of getting big powers on board imperative. The Universal\ud Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) is one comprehensive declaration, divided between\ud political and social rights in two international treaties (ICCPR & ICESCR) and makes one\ud indivisible set of principles, but clusters of identity within the global system prioritize human\ud rights interests differently. Historically, political rights have been a priority to developed\ud countries, whereas social rights tend to be favored by developing countries. I explore TAN where\ud the rights violations are related to social rights, exploring transnational advocacy around the\ud freedom from poverty or RTD. I look to see whether the prevailing TAN model proves true\ud when actors of interest collectively follow the model???s steps yet still have less power in the\ud international system. I seek to answer whether the model works for a collection of less-powerful\ud states and their focus on ICESCR rights. I do this by using the same model to explore the RTD (a\ud focused 20-year old concept and human rights campaign). I explore the nature of the\ud international community as a North-South power structure. I then ask how the results may be\ud related to theories of economic development, if any are relevant by following the tradition of\ud existing research on norm theory and human rights in Latin America