Recognizing that human rights defenders play an essential role in bringing about lasting social change, we promote policies and provide recommendations to the U.S. Government and international community to protect and promote human rights defenders worldwide. Our work encourages the development of an environment where human rights defenders can operate openly and freely. In furtherance of these goals, we have recently advocated the U.S. Government to adopt guidelines for engagement with human rights defenders similar to those adopted by Norway and the European Union. We also assist human rights defenders in conveying their messages to their domestic government, U.S. Government, and the international community as demonstrated by our recent work in Bahrain.