This study analyzes the emergence and consolidation of the human rights cause in Brazil over the last decades. The main argument is that the human rights movement emerged, as in other Latin American contexts, from the fight against totalitarian regimes, and was consolidated with institutional achievements after the re-democratization of the country. Analyzing the profile of the causes and trajectories of the main leaders of the movement in Brazil enables us to state that the human rights have become, over the 1990s, a “cause of the State”. One of the strongest indicators of this transformation is the articulation between militant movements and the government bureaucracy, and the expansion of human rights programs across Brazil, especially in the South, Southeast and North.
Brasil; Human Rights; Activism; Public Policies
