Rhetoric scholars have developed approaches to both civil and human rights as political, ethical, and academic discourses. Such approaches include examining the development and reproduction of hierarchies, the politics of representation, and the relationships among symbols, audiences consisting of disparate communities, rights, and rights events. After an overview of rhetorical contributions, as well as risks and limitations of a rhetoric approach to human rights, this introduction turns to the focus of the special issue: testifying and witnessing as a way to scrutinize the roles of bystanders to rights atrocities and the responses of listeners who may be rights committed or not.