Underlying all human rights work in the United States is a commitment to challenge the belief that the United States is inherently superior to other countries of the world, and that neither the US government nor the US rights movements have anything to gain from the domestic application of human rights. Network members believe that the US government should no longer be allowed to shield itself from accountability to human rights norms and that the US civil, women's, worker, immigrant, LGBTQ, prisoner impunity and other rights movements that stand to benefit, perhaps now more than ever, from an end to US impunity in this regard.

The membership based leadership of the USHRN committed itself from the inception of the Network to build a human rights movement that focused on the United States and was informed by a programmatic and organizational approach based on the needs, aspirations and perspective of the communities and groups directly impacted by domestic human rights violations. This approach is a departure from the policy oriented and somewhat elitist methodology of many “traditional” human rights organizations that are based in the U.S. but focused on the human situation in countries outside of the U.S. The USHRN approach is based on the time-tested proposition that an organized and informed civil society is the only force that can check governmental power and ensure adherence to the full scope of human rights guarantees. This “peopled centered” approach to human rights work requires that the emerging human rights movement merge with movements for social justice in this country. Moreover, we believe that a peopled centered human rights approach provides the conceptual framework that brings coherence and vision to social justice work in the United States.