The contribution of civil human rights defenders in the strengthening of democracy

Abstract

The text addresses the importance of the actions of human rights defenders for the democratic progress of a society, making special reference to the structure of the right to defend human rights and the correlative obligations that this imposes on the State. It also highlights as some of the most important challenges in this area the openness to criticism on the part of public servants, the recognition of the legitimacy of human rights defenders, and the State’s commitment to guarantee human rights defenders the protection of their lives and personal integrity and the substantial improvement of the conditions in which they carry out their work.