Administration and Human Rights (Elements in Public and Nonprofit Administration)

Human rights obligations are increasingly embedded in administrative practice, yet scholarship lacks a cohesive framework to guide a rights-based approach to public administration. This Element establishes a strategic foundation for Administration and Human Rights (AHR) at the intersection of administration, law, and human rights. The AHR framework is applied to three critical implementation priorities identified in recent scholarship: deliberate engagement between administration and law, binding norms obligating governments to deliver basic services, and rights-based participation to support democratic governance. Public administration is vital to realizing human rights, translating law and policy into practice. However, administrators who lack understanding of rights may fail to meet government obligations or unknowingly violate the very rights they are charged with implementing. AHR addresses this gap, offering analytical tools linking administrative practice with a rapidly evolving scholarly research agenda.