The Role of the International Community—IGOs and NGOs 375While new communication technologies have often facilitated the campaigns of
NGOs, one example of a media- driven effort illustrates both the promise and the prob-
lems of the approach. For over two de cades, the Lord’s Re sis tance Army and its leader,
Ugandan Joseph Kony, has kidnapped children in northern Uganda and used them as
child soldiers, creating fear and intimidation among the population. Invisible Children,
founded in 2004, is an NGO or ga nized to call attention to this abuse through film
and or ga nized po liti cal activity. Over the years, it has presented a simplistic but graphic
message aimed at Western audiences to fight against Kony. In 2012, a half- hour video
piece called “Kony 2012” went viral, attracting 80 million hits. While all agree that
the abuse represents an egregious violation of human rights, not every one, including
many in Uganda itself, agrees with Invisible Children’s solution, which supports military
action. So, in constructivist discourse, NGOs can aid in the spread of ideas, and in the
age of new media, they often use material resources for effect. Yet NGOs also have the
power to distort the message, oversimplify a complex prob lem, and offer slick solutions.
And, as Chapter 7 outlines, NGOs may not be representative of all those most directly
concerned. Remember, they have no in de pen dent legal standing, have few material
resources compared to states, and exist at the discretion of states in which they are
operating.
Evaluating the Efforts of the
International Community
How effective are the efforts of the international community in the area of human
rights? Setting the standards as exemplified in treaty setting is critical— without a stan-
dard, there is no benchmark for assessment. But of the vari ous activities discussed,
perhaps none is as effective as monitoring. NGOs have also been particularly useful in
monitoring activities. Amnesty International, founded in 1961, has become perhaps
the most effective human rights monitor. AI was involved in efforts to end the abuse
of human rights in Uruguay and Paraguay in the 1970s. It was instrumental in bring-
ing international attention to the Argentinian military abuses involving abductions and
disappearances in the early 1980s, using its research and publicity expertise. While the
or ga ni za tion originally emphasized the protection of individual po liti cal prisoners, its
agenda has now broadened to include multiple issues, including systematic abuses of
economic and social rights, women’s rights, and LGBT rights. AI and organ izations
like it provide information for the UN’s own monitoring activities and for the United
States.^10
Of course, monitoring is not an end in itself, so it is impor tant to ask whether mon-
itoring by either IGOs or NGOs through investigations, reports, resolutions, and
naming and shaming ultimately makes a difference for rights protection. The evidence