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The protection and promotion of human rights is experiencing increased commitment around the globe. Many organisations, groups and movements have strategically employed 'rights-based' agendas in order to advance issues and accomplish particular objectives. However, despite this ongoing mainstreaming and dominance, there is little time to reflect on the efficacy, sustainability and shortcomings of taking rights-based approaches. In this introduction to the volume 'Beyond 'rights-based approaches'?' we think critically aboutand beyond-'rights-based' approaches. As part of our review of the existing literatures (which we organise around three key waves in rights-based focused research), we introduce new research that seeks transformative solutions to systemic patterns of injustice, while considering the real changes in peoples' lives. Central to our discussion is the proposal and then the deployment of a new framework, based on a 'process/ outcome axis'. From this vantage point we identify and discuss how our contributors challenge the prevailing assumptions and practices in the fight for human dignity, by addressing the gap between theory and practice, and between scholars, activists and practitioners.

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Contemporary scholarship has overwhelmingly focused on 'rights-based approaches' (RBAs) to development as being the principle way that development and human rights have merged in NGO practice. This article focuses on development-orientated campaign strategies, and in so doing challenges the ongoing RBA fixation by considering two praxis developments: 1) despite firm rejections of RBAs, alternative human rights strategies are being embedded in contemporary NGO practice, and; 2) over the past six years key changes in wider NGO campaigning contexts and environments have led to a further development in human rights approaches. Drawing on empirical findings from a ten-year in-depth research project on NGO practice, this article not only tracks developments in campaign practice, but also proposes two new models for consideration. These models-'rights-framed' and 'rights-referenced', as practiced by influential NGOs-offer an innovative, strategic and instrumental embedding of a human rights discourse and practice.