Human rights movement refers to a nongovernmental socialmovement engaged in activism related to the issues of human rights. The foundations of the global human rights movement involve resistance to: colonialism, imperialism, slavery, racism, segregation, patriarchy, and oppression of indigenous peoples.[1]
A key principle of the human rights movement is its appeal to universality: the idea that all human beings should struggle in solidarity for a common set of basic conditions that has to be followed by all.[2]

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^ Bonny Ibhawoh (16 October 2006). "Human Rights INGOs and the North-South Gap".  In Daniel A. Bell; Jean-Marc Coicaud (eds.). Ethics in Action: The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations. Cambridge University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-521-86566-1. Retrieved 14 November 2012.

^ Nelson and Dorsey, New Rights Advocacy (2008), p. 14. "Since the mid-1990s the human rights movement has begun to take seriously the economic and social rights guaranteed in the international human rights covenants; development and human rights NGOs have joined in human rights–driven socialmovements for food, health, education, water, and other rights, often challenging development orthodoxy."

^ Charlotte Bunch, "Transforming Human Rights From a Feminist Perspective", in Women's Rights, Human Rights, (1995) ed. Stone & Wolper.