Garry Kasparov puts in a rather heated effort to champion human rights in the world. Amongst all the fireworks, this paragraph stands out for any clarity:

The goal with such a compact is not to build walls to isolate the millions of people living under authoritarian rule. Instead, it is to provide real leadership by example as well as concrete incentives to respect human rights. Look at the speed with which the incentive of joining the European Union has spurred dramatic reforms throughout Eastern Europe. This model should be replicated on a global scale.

Is this not what Amnesty International is designed to promote?  Or, amidst the debate about whether championing habeus corpus or social rights is optimal, has Amnesty lost its authority?

Amnesty still champions such causes, rattling dictatorial governments (and governments with dictatorial tendencies). But its mission has also become broader and more ambitious, calling for political and economic improvement as well as freedom from judicial persecution. “Working on individuals is important, but if we don't work on systemic change we just exchange one group of sufferers for another,� says Irene Khan, its secretary-general.

Many of the movement's most vocal supporters strongly support this stance, increasingly entrenched in Amnesty's thinking; it also chimes well with the visceral opposition to American foreign policy, and to globalisation, that exists in many parts of the world. All that has made Amnesty more popular in some quarters—but also, perhaps, less effective overall.

And, as I'm sure Barnett would point out, let's not forget the military component of such a project/

Let's start with Magna Carta, and one project: habeus corpus. Kasparov leaves too many questions unanswered.