Human Rights Impunity and Anti-Press Violence

<p><em>Human Rights Impunity and Anti-Press Violence </em>is a qualitative comparative and interdisciplinary exploration of journalists’ responses to impunity for anti-press violence in two Latin American partial democracies Mexico and Honduras. It is the first book-length analysis of the security and protection of journalists who can also be seen as human rights defenders. The book draws on 89 interviews with such journalist-defenders and organisations that support them carried out in 2018 and 2022/23. It shows how journalists use several interlinked strategies to seek justice and protection: domestic and international strategies (“protection approaches” or making rights demands of the state often via intermediaries) and activist and professional strategies (“self-protection approaches”).</p><p>Critical of international relations scholarly debates on the value of international human rights law/norms to local civil society Tamsin Mitchell demonstrates that while protection approaches based on such standards are important and valued they are not enough: self-protection is central – and increasingly so. She advocates the need to take a more bottom-up and inclusive approach to civil society and the importance of alternative non-legal norms in (self-)protection and truth- and justice-seeking.</p><p>Suitable for both academics and practitioners <i>Human Rights Impunity and Anti-Press Violence </i>prescribes new areas of research and debate in international relations global studies human rights and media/journalism studies.</p>