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In this essay I explore the hypothesis that human rights and democracy promotion are better off in separation, whereas in recent decades they have increasingly been conflated. The convergence of human rights and democracy promotion has in part been responsible for a global phenomenon of ‘pushback’against democracy and rights assistance. I show how human rights came about as an apolitical, minimalist project, as embodied by Amnesty International in the 1970s but has since become increasingly politicized. The increasingly close association between human rights and democracy promotion has been an important contributor in this regard, especially from the 1990s on, after the end of the Cold War. During the 2000s, the unilateral, interventionist policies of the Bush administration and the association of non-governmental organizations with military humanitarian intervention put increasing pressure on the …