Instrumentalizing Human Rights: The On-Stage and Off-Stage of the Blacklisted Workers’ Movement

Has international human rights law become a tool reserved for the global elite? While some argue that human rights frameworks empower advocacy groups to pressure governments, others claim these institutions are accessible only to well-funded, transnational nongovernmental organizations and risk depoliticizing activists’ demands. Based on a study of the blacklisted workers’ movement in the United Kingdom, this study shows a new way in which human rights laws and institutions can catalyze social movements. Recognizing the limitations of human rights, activists take an instrumental approach that creates a duality in their movement. On-stage before public audiences, they leverage human rights to amplify grievances and push for reform. However, off-stage, human rights norms do not shape their ideological commitments or solidarity, which remain rooted in class-based identities. These findings demonstrate how human rights law can spur grassroots mobilization while decoupling the material and cultural drivers of social movements.