Professionalised Representation of Human Rights NGOs to the United Nations

Most studies explain the rise of NGOs as actors on the international stage by emphasising political developments or technical achievements as factors which have fostered their success. The focus in this paper, instead, will be on how NGOs themselves have transformed and how such change has affected the way in which they have become significant players in international relations. Drawing upon the notion of professionalisation as deriving from theoretical approaches of societal activism, I argue that NGOs increasingly invested in their international presence and gradually professionalised. In order to illustrate the argument, professionalisation of NGO representation to the UN will be examined with respect to four case studies of international human rights organisations: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation of Human Rights and the International League for Human Rights.